


Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

by BonitaBreezy



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, College Student Stiles, Complete, Derek's immeasurable well of guilt, End of the World, Frottage, M/M, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Suicide mentions, Werewolves, cross country road trip, pretty frank discussions about death and dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7335658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BonitaBreezy/pseuds/BonitaBreezy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Stiles had thought it was a joke, the first time he’d heard the announcement on the news.<br/>He’d flipped on the TV to find the news anchor somberly reporting that an asteroid large enough to destroy all human life was hurting towards the Earth, and that NASA was preparing a team to go up and destroy it.  The story was literally the plot of Armageddon, and Stiles had just snorted and turned the channel to the Mets game."</p><p>As an asteroid heads towards Earth, promising nothing but destruction, Stiles Stilinski needs to get from New York to California to be with his dad for the end of days.  His only option is to pack himself into a tiny (but gorgeous) sports car with his intimidating (but gorgeous) neighbor and drive approximately three thousand miles.  It'll probably be fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based off the movie with the same title. If you haven't seen it, you totally should it was amazing. It's also on Netflix. Also, keep in mind that this is an end of the world fic. I feel like that insinuates some tragedy.

Two Weeks Remaining

Stiles had thought it was a joke, the first time he’d heard the announcement on the news.  

He’d flipped on the TV to find the news anchor somberly reporting that an asteroid large enough to destroy all human life was hurting towards the Earth, and that NASA was preparing a team to go up and destroy it.  The story was literally the plot of _Armageddon_ , and Stiles had just snorted and turned the channel to the Mets game.

It’s a little harder to laugh at now, sitting in his Great American Literature class watching the news.  Another professor had burst through the door halfway through a seriously trite analysis of _The Road_ and demanded they turn on the television, and now they were all silent as they watched the grim-faced news anchor report that the mission was a failure.

“No one is sure what caused the fire which Ied to the massive explosion killing all 12 crew members and scientists aboard the space shuttle Deliverance, taking with them our last and only hope.”

A girl two rows ahead of him was sobbing loudly into her hands and Stiles kind of wanted to shake her until she got a hold of herself, even though he was about ten seconds away from crying like a baby as well.

“Once again, if you're just tuning in, the CSA space shuttle Deliverance has been destroyed,” the anchor reported. “The final mission to save mankind has failed. The 70-mile-wide asteroid known commonly as "Matilda" is set to collide with Earth in exactly two weeks time, and we'll be bringing you up-to-the-minute coverage of our countdown to the end of days as long as we are capable of broadcasting.”

His words shook something loose in Stiles, making his brain kick back into gear, and he fumbled for his cellphone, his heart pounding in his chest.  He wasn’t sure quite what he expected; maybe for his phone to not connect or for the power grid to suddenly collapse, leaving him uncertain and alone all the way across the country.  But the call connected and his dad answered with a shaky,

“Stiles!”

“Dad,” he said, his voice sounding really loud in the relative silence of the classroom.  A few other students whipped around to look at him in surprise, and he saw others diving suddenly for their own phones, like they’d remembered as suddenly as he had that there were people they cared about.

“Are you watching the news?” his dad asked, like there would be any other reason for Stiles to call him in the middle of the day.

“Yeah,” Stiles said.  His voice sounded dull and shocked to his own ears, and he wondered how his face must look.

“That’s some shit, huh?”

His Dad sounded exhausted, but not panicked.  John Stilinski was the Sheriff of Beacon Hills, and he was used to keeping his cool in crazy ass situations.  Hearing his calm voice made Stiles’ blood stop buzzing under his skin, made his chest loosen up and his breaths come easier.

“Yeah,” Stiles said again.

He realized suddenly that he was still sitting in a classroom full of strangers, and that they’d all just been told they had two weeks to live.  He’d never had less interest in analyzing literature in his life, and it looked like he wasn’t going to be getting a degree anyway, so he grabbed his bag and left without another word.

“Dad, what do we do?” he asked as he exited the building and started his walk to the nearest subway station, the same thing he’d done every day for the past three years without a thought.  It seemed so normal.

There was a long pause and then John sighed. “I don’t know kid.  I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

“I’m coming home,” Stiles said, because that was the only thing that made sense to him.  

If they were going to die, he was going to be at home when it happened.  With his dad and Scott, in the same place that he’d lived his whole life.  The same place he’d spent way too few years with his mom.

“Okay,” his Dad said, no argument or hesitation. “It’s gonna be crazy out there, Stiles. Be careful.”

“I will,” Stiles said.  He didn’t want to hang up the phone.  He wanted to stay on the line and talk until his battery died, because in his experience, his dad made everything okay.  But he had to get on the train to get back to his apartment, and he’d lose his signal once he went down the stairs anyway. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too, kid.”

He hung up his phone and stuffed it in his pocket.  There were so many people around him just going about their lives, and he wondered if they even knew.  The news was just breaking, maybe they hadn’t heard yet.  Maybe they still thought the Deliverance would save them.  Maybe they didn’t know they were already dead.

Stiles wasn’t going to be the one to tell them.

The ride back to his apartment was as uneventful as any other.  It almost felt like the end of the world was just a weird dream he’d had, and that everything was fine.  He wondered how long it would take for society to break down, or if they even had the time for that.

Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor was checking his mail when Stiles entered his building.  He was frowning at a stack of envelopes in his hand like they had personally offended him, and he looked really good doing it.  Stiles had been ogling Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor for the past two years, regaling Scott with tales about that time he’d bent over in the hallway to tie his shoe and showed off his perfect ass, or the time when they’d made actual eye contact in the hallway.  It was a very one-sided and pathetic love affair, but most of Stiles’ relationships had been borne from slowly worming his way into someone’s life until they one day they woke up and realized they totally had a devoted boyfriend, so that was pretty par for course.

But hell, it was the end of days.  What did he have to lose?

“So,” Stiles said, pausing in the lobby.  Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor glanced up from his mail, scowl still firmly in place. “You, uh, see the news?”

Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor raised his eyebrows slightly, like he wasn’t sure if Stiles was stupid or just weird.

“Kind of hard to miss,” he said.

His voice a lot higher than Stiles would have guessed.  It wasn’t like he’d been sucking down helium or anything, but whenever Stiles had imagined it, he’d expected a deep, sexy growl.  He suddenly realized that maybe Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor was younger than he’d originally thought.  Beards tended to make men look older, didn’t they?

“I’m, uh,” Stiles said. “Gonna go home to California.  See my dad.”

“The flights have all sold out,” Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor said. “They just said so on the news.”

“What?” Stiles demanded, suddenly panicked. “How is that possible?”

“They’re only doing flights for a few more days,” Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor shrugged. “They said as the asteroid gets closer it’s going to interfere with satellites and make it unsafe to fly.  All of the seats to everywhere sold in out in less than an hour.”

“Shit,” Stiles said. “Fuck.  Okay.  I’ve gotta go.”

He rushed up the stairs to his apartment making calm plans in his head.  It was going to be okay.  It would be totally fine.  He could get a train or a greyhound.  It would be fine.

An hour later, it was obvious that it would not be fine.  Trains had sold out just minutes after planes, and Greyhound had discontinued its services entirely, though Stiles wasn’t sure if that was for the benefit of the drivers or if the drivers had just flat out refused to leave their families at the end of the world.  Jobs didn’t matter anymore.  Money didn’t matter anymore.  Nothing did, really.

“Dad,” Stiles said when the line connected. “I’m not gonna make it home.  There’s no flights or trains or anything, and Manhattan is gridlocked.  I could try to rent a car, but the tunnel and the bridge are both backed up for miles.”

“Shit,” his dad said, his voice shaky. “That’s...that’s okay, son.  It’ll be okay.”

“Dad,” Stiles said, his voice choked up. It certainly was not okay and they both knew it. “I don’t…”

“If you can’t get out, you can’t get out,” his dad said, gently. “It’ll be okay.  We’ll talk on the phone, okay, it will be fine.”

They were both going to die alone, a country away from each other, and there was nothing they could do about it.  He didn’t make the obvious suggestion, that his dad should try to come to him.  He was the Sheriff.  When everything went to shit, Beacon Hills would need him.  Even if he could somehow manage to get into Manhattan, the people of Beacon Hills needed him.

“Okay,” Stiles said, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“Okay,” his Dad said.

Ten Days Remaining

Stiles was in the middle of a call with Scott when the phone lines went down.

He found out later that it all went down together; the internet, satellite television, cell phones.  Pretty much anything that relied on satellites to broadcast a signal cut off suddenly and all at once.  He’d tried, a few times, to call literally any number he could think of, including 911, but nothing had connected.  

He’d had a panic attack then, wondering if he’d ever hear his dad’s voice again or ever joke with his best friend.  He didn’t know when the power or the water would shut down.  Hell, he didn’t even know if his roommates had gone home to be with their families or if they’d just taken a walk off the top of a parking garage.  They certainly wouldn’t be the first to have done so.

That was about the time he rounded up every bit of booze he could find in his apartment for the ultimate bender.  He was going to drink until he passed out, and then drink some more.

??? Days Remaining

Stiles woke up face down on his living room floor in the middle of the afternoon.  His mouth tasted like deep-fried ass and his head was pounding so strongly he could practically see the vibrations with his eyes.  Part of him was kind of surprised that he hadn’t died from alcohol poisoning, especially considering he had very little memory of however much time had passed since he’d taken his first mouthful of cheap ass vodka.  What little he did remember included a lot of sobbing, and he had a vague memory of throwing eggs out the window just to watch them splat on the concrete six stories down.

Stiles scrubbed his hands over his face and then got up to inspect the apartment.  It didn’t look like anyone else had been there.  The apartment looked just the same as if had, but with the addition of way too many empty beer bottles littering the flat surfaces.  He grabbed the remote off the coffee table next to him and flipped the TV on.  He’d only ever had his tv hooked up to his Roku and an antenna he'd never actually utilized. He was grateful for it now, since a local news channel came on.  The anchor was talking about uncertainties of how long power and water services would hold up, especially since so many people had walked out of their jobs.

Stiles grabbed his phone to try and check the date, but it was totally dead.  He groaned and tossed it on the couch, aware that it was basically a useless hunk of metal.  He couldn’t make calls, send texts, or access the Internet, so mostly it was a fancy alarm clock.

He finally pulled himself to his feet, wobbling slightly as he did so, and decided to go out and get more alcohol.  Either he would die of alcohol poisoning or be totally plastered at the end of the world.  Considering death was inevitable and imminent, it didn’t really seem to matter that much.

He expected that the streets would be totally empty and quiet, like in some post-apocalypse movie where the hero staggers through an abandoned, crumbling city.  In reality, it looked much the same as it always did.  There were less cars around, since apparently the gridlock had broken up and people had finally made their way out of the city, and a lot of the shops stood empty, but other than that it appeared to be business as usual.  People were moving along the streets as if they had places to be and jobs to do, and maybe they did.  Stiles was coping with alcohol.  Maybe others were coping by being as normal as possible.

A huge notice board had appeared on the corner a block down from his apartment. It was littered with classified ads. They covered everything from people looking to commit suicide via hitman to people looking to swipe their v-card before the big sleep.

Up ahead, he saw a man clambering through the shattered window of the liquor store with an armful of bottles.  No one paid him any mind, totally unconcerned, so Stiles followed his lead.  He picked his way carefully through the broken glass and surveyed what was left on the shelves.  

Surprisingly, the place hadn’t been totally picked over.  There certainly wasn’t any of the top-shelf stuff left, but there was enough decent cheaper stuff to get him thoroughly trashed.  He grabbed a few bottles of Maker’s Mark, mostly because it was his dad’s drink of choice, and ducked back through the window and onto the street.  No one even looked twice at him, but the mental image of his dad’s disappointed face was enough to make him feel guilty anyway.  Not guilty enough to put it back, though.

Stiles opened up a bottle and took a swig as he started his way back to his building.  It was smooth stuff, way better than the liter bottles of R&R he usually bought.  He’d taken quite a few mouthfuls by the time he got back into his building, and he didn’t even have the energy to be embarrassed about it when he ran into Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor on the way back up stairs to his apartment.

“I thought you were going to see your family,” Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor said.  It was surprising enough that he was actually speaking to Stiles, since it taken the literal end of the world to spur their first conversation, but the way his thick dark eyebrows drew together in concern made Stiles actually stop and look at him.

“There was no way out of the city,” Stiles shrugged. “And I don’t have a car.”

“So you’re just going to stay here?” Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor asked. “Until…”

“Until the end,” Stiles agreed. “I already said goodbye to my Dad, technically, I guess.  So it’s...I mean, it is what it is.”

“Yeah,” Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor said awkwardly. “I guess so.”

“Do you have any family?” Stiles asked, and Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor shifted awkwardly, his shoulders hunched defensively.

“They’re in California,” he said.

“Oh hey, my dad, too!” Stiles said brightly. “Where about?”

“Kind of the middle of nowhere,” he shrugged. “Near Sacramento.”

“Hell yeah, man, I’m from Beacon Hills!” Stiles said, feeling suddenly cheerful at the idea that he was with someone from home.  Maybe not exactly where he was from, and it certainly wasn’t the same as _being_ home, but it felt like a comforting little connection anyway. “Did you try to get out there too?”

“No,” Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor said, looking kind of pained. “It won’t make a difference to them if I’m there or here.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Stiles said, trying to sound comforting. “I know I want to be with my dad more than anything right now.  But instead I’ll just…” He shook the bottle in his hand and snorted out a sad little laugh, the small bit of comfort he’d found from their similar origins slipping away again in the memory of their certain doom.

“Oh by the way, how many days left?” Stiles asked. “I’ve, uh, kind of been blackout drunk for a while.”

“Seven,” Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor said, looking vaguely like he wished he was drunk enough to forget whole days.

“Ah,” Stiles said. “Good.  Or not, I guess.  Anyway, if you feel like coming by and getting plastered, my door’s always open.  603.”

“Thanks,” Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor said dryly. “I’m Derek.”

“Stiles Stilinski,” Stiles said back, shifting one of his bottles under his arm so that he could shake Derek’s hand.  When he’d imagined learning Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor’s name, this hadn’t exactly been what he’d pictured.  He’d thought that he’d be a less hungover, for one.

“Good talking to you, Derek,” Stiles said, saluting him with a bottle. “I’ll see you around.  Or something.”

“Yeah,” Derek said.

They stared at each other for a moment in silence then, like there was something they wanted to say that they just couldn’t find words for, and then they both continued on their ways, Stiles going up and Derek going down.  Stiles let himself into his apartment and threw the deadbolt behind him, even though he was pretty sure it didn’t really matter if someone tried to burst into his apartment anymore.  

He looked consideringly at the kitchen, debating about getting a glass and getting shitfaced like a civilized human or just continuing to drink directly out of the bottle because humanity was fucked anyway.  He was just raising the bottle to his lips when there came a sudden knock on his door.  He paused for a moment, wondering who it could possibly be, and then made his way over.  He was surprised to see Derek through the peephole.

“Hey,” he said, swinging the door open. “Did you decide to drink away your sorrows with me?”

“I have a car,” Derek said, and Stiles froze, staring at him.

“I’m sorry, what?” he asked, not wanting to believe what he’d heard and then be disappointed when it turned out it was a drunken hallucination.

“I have a car,” Derek repeated. “I don’t drive it much, but it’s in a parking garage a few blocks over and I can take you to California.  If you still want to go.”

“Are you shitting me?” Stiles asked, hope swelling up in his chest. “Derek, are you serious?”

“Totally serious.  Maybe my family won’t care one way or another where I am, but I think I’d like to see them one last time.  So I’ll go to California, but only if you’ll go with me.”

“Are you kidding?” Stiles sputtered. “Of course I’ll go with you!  When can we leave?”

“As soon as you want,” Derek said, shrugging. “I have nowhere else to be.”

“Shit, man!” Stiles babbled, excited. “Give me like an hour to shower and pack up some provisions, okay?  Is an hour okay?”

“An hour’s perfect,” Derek said, all nonchalant like he hadn’t just made Stiles’ entire life. “I’m right across the hall, 604.  Knock when you’re ready.”

“I can’t believe this!” Stiles gushed. “You’re like my hero right now, man, I could kiss you!”

“Oh, well,” Derek stuttered, ducking his head with second-hand embarrassment at Stiles’ awkward outburst. “Just...I’ll see you in an hour.”

“Yeah, definitely!” Stiles said. “An hour, you got it.  Thank you so much, dude!”

He didn’t stop babbling thanks and praise until Derek turned back towards his apartment, and then he practically skipped towards the bathroom.  Yeah, sure, the world was still ending.  They were all gonna be crushed to death by a giant asteroid.  

But he was going home.

* * *

Derek’s car turned out to be a beautiful Camaro.  It was a few years old, but looked like brand new.  Even the interior still kind of had remnants of that new car smell, and Stiles couldn’t figure out how anyone could own such a gorgeous car and then not drive it.  He’d almost had a crisis when he’d had to leave his trusty old Jeep in Beacon Hills because paying for parking in Manhattan was ridiculous.

“Are you done molesting my car yet?” Derek asked as Stiles patted the hood and crooned about what a pretty girl she was.

“Well, I guess so,” Stiles huffed, sliding into the passenger seat which was covered in butter smooth black leather. “Derek, this car is a wet dream.”

“It was my sister’s,” Derek said, sliding into the driver’s seat.  He looked perfectly at home there, like the sexy mysterious stranger on a TV show, with his tight jeans, leather jacket, and cool sports car.  Stiles kind of wanted to lick the place where chest hair started to poke out from under his v-neck t-shirt, but he resisted the urge admirably.  His  own jeans and hoodie felt kind of sloppy in comparison.

“Your sister let you take such an awesome car?” Stiles demanded. “Was she buying an even cooler, awesomer car?”

The car purred to life when Derek turned it on, so quiet and smooth that, for a moment, Stiles hadn’t even realized it was on.  His own Jeep tended to roar to life with a vengeance, after a few tries at getting the engine to turn over.  They pulled out of the garage and onto the street, not having to navigate traffic quite as thick as Manhattan would normally present.  There was still enough, though, and Stiles knew it was going to take at least an hour to get out of the city.

“She didn’t need it anymore,” Derek said, his eyes firmly on the road. “I was going to buy something a little more practical, but it seemed stupid to do that when there was a perfectly good car up for grabs.”

“Dude, you sister is awesome,” Stiles told him. “Like, seriously, best gift ever.”

He stroked the dashboard a bit covetously, feeling almost like he was cheating on his Jeep as he did so.  But Roscoe was a resilient girl, and what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

“You’re gonna let me drive, right?” Stiles asked excitedly.

“We’ll see,” Derek said dryly, but Stiles totally knew he was gonna get to drive the car because they had a four day trip ahead of them and Derek had to sleep sometime.  He settled back into his seat with a satisfied little wiggle and sighed.

“Thanks for doing this, dude,” he said again.

“Try to get some sleep,” Derek said, instead of acknowledging the thanks. “You’re no good to me hungover.”

Stiles snorted a laugh but wiggled around in his seat again to try and find a comfortable sleeping position.  Apparently it didn’t take much, because he was out like a light in a just a few minutes.

* * *

When Stiles woke up, it was dark outside and they were on a big empty highway, though he wasn’t sure if it was the New York Thruway or I-80.

“What time is it?” he asked Derek sleepily, rubbing his eyes.  His mouth was dry, but other than that his hangover symptoms seemed to be gone.  There was soft music playing over the car stereo, which must have been a CD because as far as he knew the only thing on the radio anymore was Armageddon news.  

“Where are we?”

“8:15,” Derek said. “We just passed Mercer, but we’re not quite out of Pennsylvania yet.”

That meant I-80, then.  If it was past eight, they’d been driving for over six hours.  The only hint that Derek had even stopped in that time was the Starbucks cup sitting in the cup holder between them.  Stiles felt a bit guilty about it for a moment, but if Derek had stopped to get coffee he could have woken Stiles up at the same time, so he didn’t feel super awful about it.

“You found an open Starbucks?” Stiles asked.

“I found a Starbucks.  It wasn’t open, but I know how to break windows and make coffee.  There’s some water in the back if you want some.”

Stiles practically lunged over the back of the seat to find it.  His hangover was mostly gone, but the last stirring dregs had left him dry mouthed and thirsty.  There was a whole milk crate full of water on the floor behind Derek’s seat, like he’d grabbed as much as he could carry out the door.  It was smart of him, really, because they had no idea where they’d be able to find water on the way.  Odds were, most of the rest stops and gas stations had been left to rot and whatever they had left would be up for grabs, but it wasn’t the sort of chance they could depend on at the end of the world.

He sucked down half the bottle of water in a few drinks, spilling some out of the corner of his mouth so that it ran down his jaw and onto his neck.  Derek made a strangled sort of noise and the car accelerated noticeably.

“You okay?” Stiles asked, wiping the water away with the sleeve of his hoodie, squirming a bit at the sensation of damp t-shirt where the spilled water had managed to slip below his collar.

“Don’t spill anything on my upholstery,” Derek grumbled, his knuckles tight on the steering wheel like Stiles was handling pure acid.

“I didn’t,” Stiles said indignantly. “Anyway, it’s just water.”

Derek didn’t bother with a response, only continued to glower out at the road as if it personally offended him.  Stiles rolled his eyes and finished the bottle of water, drinking carefully so as not to spill any more of it.

“I’m thinking we should stop at the next exit and see if we can find some food,” Stiles said after a few minutes of silence. “I’m kind of starving.”

“Yeah,” Derek agreed. “I could use another break.”

The car fell quiet again, and Stiles found himself drumming his fingers against the armrest on the door to the beat of the bassline of whatever classical piece they were listening to.  He bit his tongue, trying to keep from babbling to fill the silence.  He was annoying.  He knew that.  Even his own dad tended to tune him out when he really got on a roll.  The last thing he needed to do was annoy Derek so much that he changed his mind about driving Stiles all the way across the country and instead ditched him on the side of I-80.  He would just sit there and keep his mouth shut and not be annoying.

He lasted all of two minutes.

“So, what are you?” Stiles asked.

Derek’s hands tightened on the steering wheel again and he shot Stiles a sharp look.

“I guess I should say, ‘what were you’,” Stiles continued. “I mean, since you’re probably not doing whatever it was anymore, considering we’re almost out of the state.  I was a student, mostly.  Criminal Justice major.  I was gonna be a cop like my dad.  But I waited tables to pay my rent.  That sucked, because like, I’m really good at keeping a conversation going, but I’m not so great at not being a sarcastic jerk, so…”

“I was a bouncer,” Derek said, cutting Stiles off mid-sentence, which was probably for the best, since he could go on forever if no one stopped him.

“I could totally see that,” Stiles said, sizing Derek up.  He wasn’t like a body builder, with muscles on top of his muscles, but he was definitely firmly built.  His wide shoulders and biceps alone were drool-worthy. “You look like you could throw someone like ten feet with one hand.”

“At least twice that,” Derek said, totally deadpan.  Stiles snorted.

“Well, did you like bouncing?  Was it thrilling to throw people out the door?”

“So thrilling,” Derek snarked. “I love it when drunk assholes get in my face and try to threaten me.”

“I bet,”  Stiles agreed. “Then you got to be all manly and threatening.  I’ve seen you glare, man, that shit is terrifying.  You must have been good at it.”

“It pays the bills,” Drek said, more seriously. “But I wouldn’t say it was my dream as a child or anything.”

“Well, what did you want to do then?” Stiles asked. “Astronaut? Cowboy?”

Derek was quiet for a long moment, like the question was a real stumper.  Finally, he shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I wanted to go to college, but I never really decided on what to major in.”

“Why didn’t you go?” Stiles asked. “You’ve gotta be, what, almost thirty?  How’d you fall into bouncing?”

“I’m twenty-six,” Derek said. “And things changed.”  He sounded sad, like the whole weight of the world was pressing him down. “There’s an exit.  Looks like there’s a McDonald’s and a Friendsy’s…”

He slowed down the car as they went off the exit ramp, taking the turn in a smooth arc that Stiles had never quite managed.  It was pretty obvious that he didn’t want to talk about college and why he hadn’t gone, and Stiles supposed he shouldn’t pry.  He really wanted to, but he was still depending on Derek’s kindness to get home, so he’d have to mind his own business.

“Oh, Friendsy’s!” Stiles said, instead of pushing for answers. “They have the best curly fries.  It can’t be that hard to figure out how to run an industrial deep fryer, right?”

“Right,” Derek said. “It’s probably super easy.”  Stiles couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

The Friendsy’s was on the main drag right off the Interstate, and Stiles was surprised to find that it was all lit up and that there were cars in the parking lot.

“Is it open?” Stiles asked incredulously. “Is someone actually still running a restaurant right now?”

“Well,” Derek said turning into the parking lot and searching for a spot to park. “People have to eat.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said doubtfully. “But who wants to spend their last days serving assholes food?”

“I don’t know,” Derek said, swerving into a spot as if there was someone lying in wait to take it from him. Stiles was beginning to suspect that Derek was just an aggressive driver. “Maybe they want to feel normal.”

...

“Normal” was totally not the vibe that Stiles got at they let themselves through the front door.  The whole place was packed with people dancing on table tops and blowing whistles in beat with the music like they were in a nightclub.  One of the guys behind the bar was trying to flip a bottle of liquor in the air and catch it behind his back, but it just smashed to the floor with a loud crash, amongst cheers from on-lookers.  The host was dressed in the usual red-and-white striped Friendsy’s uniform, but he was also wearing two arms full of glow stick bracelets and had a joint hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

“Hello!” he greeted them cheerfully, throwing his arms out and scooping Stiles up in a hug that was so enthusiastic he was almost lifted off his feet.  Stiles laughed and hugged him back.

“Welcome to Friendsy’s, where everyone is your friend!  I’m Isaac!” the host said, releasing Stiles and grabbing Derek around the neck.  Derek’s whole body immediately went stiff, and he made no move to hug back, but the host didn’t seem to mind.

“Two for dinner?” Isaac asked brightly.

“Yeah!” Stiles said, because Derek was scowling so hard Stiles was pretty sure his eyebrows were about to take siege over the rest of his face.  Clearly he was not much of a toucher. “We were really surprised that you guys were still open.”

“Yeah!” Isaac said brightly. “We thought about closing down, but in the end we decided why not stay open and party down to the end of the world, right?  It’s people connecting with people, man, it’s totally beautiful.”

“Definitely!” Stiles said, widening his eyes at Derek, who was too busy watching a middle-aged man bounce in place on a pogo stick to notice.

“Here we are!” Isaac said, waving his arms at a booth Vanna White style. “Erica is gonna be your waitress, you’ll totally love her!  She’s amazing and her hair smells like apples!”

A gorgeous blonde in killer heels and bright red lipstick appeared next to the table and threw her arms around Isaac’s waist.  He squeezed her ass unabashedly, clad only in a skin tight micro mini skirt, and all she did was laugh and kiss him on the nose

“You are so drunk!” she told him, delighted.

“You’re drunk!” Isaac shot back, but Erica just laughed and nodded enthusiastically.  Someone across the room yelled something about ecstasy and Isaac immediately perked up.

“Okay, well have fun!” he said, heading off to the other side of the restaurant, leaving Erica to sway side-to-side by the table with a huge smile on her face.  She stopped suddenly and looked at them, like she’d suddenly remembered that they were there, and then plopped down next to Stiles, wiggling until he got the hint and scooted over to make room for her on the red vinyl booth.

“Hi!” she said. “What can I get you guys?  Everything on the menu is awesome, and we’ve got tons of new specials because Boyd is getting, like, super creative with his cooking!”

She was slowly but surely tilting towards Stiles, like she wasn’t quite able to keep herself upright on her own.  When her whole shoulder pressed up against Stiles’ arm, he gently pushed her up straight and she laughed and pinched his cheek.

“You okay, Erica?” Stiles asked her, genuinely concerned.  She was clearly on something, but she didn’t seem to be in any particular danger.  Just kind of loopy.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’m like, totally rolling right now, but I’m pretty sure we can get through this ordering thing painlessly,” she told him with an exaggerated wink.

“Okay, then I want a burger and a plate full of curly fries,” Stiles told her, and she squealed happily like he’d just told her the best news of her life.

“Yes!” she said. “Our curly fries are super good!  What else?  You want a drink?  What about you, scowly friend?”

“Just a burger and some water,” Derek told her, looking doubtful that she’d remember long enough to actually put in their order and then get the food to them.

“Water for me too,” Stiles told her. “I’m just really jonesing for some curly fries.”

“You’ve totally got it!” Erica told him, standing back up on her killer heels. “And if you guys are like, super chill, I might even even swing something heavier for you!  Everyone is being super friendly about sharing.  You want some E?  Or maybe even coke?  I heard someone brought coke!”

“We’re good on the cocaine, thanks,” Stiles said, smiling at her.

“Are you sure?” Erica asked. “Because it’s a special day, you know.  All days are special now, so we might as well have a great time.”

“I did know it was a special day,” Stiles said, knowing that his grin had to look wicked. “It’s his birthday today.”

Derek stared at him disbelievingly for a moment, and his shocked face quickly melted into a scowl.  It was totally worth it just to see what this group full of crazy, drugged up people would do to celebrate a birthday.  It was even more worth it when Erica turned on him with a dramatic gasp, her eyes going wide.

“Oh my god!” she wailed. “Why didn’t you tell me?  Happy birthday!  You guys!” she yelled to the surrounding people, who didn’t seem to be paying much attention. “It’s his birthday!”

She grabbed the whistle hanging around her neck and blew shrilly into it, making Derek flinch and scowl even harder, before she danced away into the crowd, blowing her whistle in beat with the song.

“Why did you do that?” he demanded as soon as she was out of earshot.

“Uh, because it was hilarious,” Stiles told him. “Duh.  Anyway, for all I know, it is your birthday.”

“It isn’t,” Derek told him flatly.

“It is now,” Stiles said, grinning at him. “Come on, Derek, have a little fun! This place is great, I don’t know why you’re being so grouchy.”

“I’m almost a hundred percent sure these people are all in a cult and they’re going to kill and eat us,” Derek said, looking around at everyone suspiciously.

“Oh come on, they’re happy,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. “They might as well be, with everything going to shit.”

A conga line, lead by an enthusiastic Isaac, passed by their table.  Stiles grinned and thought about joining, but the constipated look on Derek’s face kept him in his seat.

“We should probably leave,” Derek said.

“Dude, we have to eat,” Stiles told him stubbornly. “And I think you could use a little joy in your life right now.  Come on, at least pretend you know how to smile.”

“I smile plenty,” Derek said, frowning pointedly.

“I have yet to see evidence,” Stiles said, sliding out of the booth. “I’m going to find a bathroom.  If I don’t come back in five minutes, enjoy your Stiles-burger.”

“You’re not funny!” Derek called after him.

“I’m hilarious!” Stiles yelled back, joining the conga line as a surefire way to break through the crowd towards the bathroom on the other side of the restaurant.  

The bathroom was mostly empty, except for two dudes having full-on penetrative sex against the far wall.  Stiles considered backing out of the bathroom and leaving them to it, but in the end he really had to pee and they didn’t seem to mind him being there.  The guy being plowed into the wall actually let go of his partner’s shoulders to wave enthusiastically at him.  Stiles waved back awkwardly.

“You wanna go next?” the guy asked, totally genuine.

“I’m good, thanks,” Stiles said quickly and went to do his business, trying to ignore the sounds of slapping skin and moaning.  He washed his hands to the merry tune of “oh fuck fuck fuck fuck!” and then beat a quick retreat out of the bathroom.

“So you’re still alive,” Derek said, his nose flaring slightly as Stiles sat down, like he smelled something weird and couldn’t place it.  Stiles pressed his nose against his shoulder, wondering if the smell of sex could stick to someone who hadn’t even been having it.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “I totally got propositioned by some guys boning in the bathroom, though.”

“So it’s a weird sex cult,” Derek said, smirking.

“Way better than a cannibal cult,” Stiles shot back.

“Maybe it's both,” Derek said, raising his eyebrows conspiratorially.

Stiles crowed out a loud laugh, tossing his head back far enough that he smacked it against the top of the booth. Derek was smiling at him with hunched shoulders and pink ears, like he was utterly delighted at making Stiles laugh, but also embarrassed about it.  Maybe Stiles’ comment about his downer attitude had actually gotten to him.

“Man, I think I was way wrong about you,” Stiles told him, pleased.

“Oh yeah?” He tried to look unbothered, but Stiles saw his shoulders slump like he was disappointed or something.

“Totally, man,” Stiles said. “Every time I saw you I always figured you were like, so untouchable, you know? Like that guy in high school who is just so much cooler than everyone else. I don't know if you know this, but you look pretty intimidating, my friend.”

“I've heard that, once or twice,” Derek admitted, fiddling with his silverware.

“I bet,” Stiles snorted. “But I see you, Derek.  I've got your number.”

“Oh yeah?” This time the question was amused and maybe a little flirty.

“Uh huh,” Stiles said, leaning towards him. “You are _funny_. You have an actual real-life sense of humor.  There's more to you than a pretty face and a hot bod.”

Derek opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by a group of employees brandishing sparklers and singing loudly.  They converged on the table through the crowd, lead by Erica with a huge plate of curly fries in one hand, and a burger in the other.  They were all clapping and wailing an out-of-tune, basically incomprehensible song that mostly seemed to consist of “Friendsy’s!” and “Happy Last Birthday!” as they marched in their little parade.  Erica set their plates down in front of them as the song ended and everyone cheered, and then she lunged across the table and planted a sloppy kiss right on Derek’s mouth.  Stiles laughed out loud as Derek jerked back, looking horrified, and then Erica turned on him and kissed Stiles too.

She wasn’t joking around, either, trying to slip Stiles the tongue even as he tried to laugh it off and back away from her. He could see Isaac across the table, kissing Derek soundly with his hands clutching the side of his face, and someone else seemed to be trying to crawl under the table to get their hands on his fly.

“Okay!” Stiles said quickly, backing away from Erica as much as the booth would allow. “I think we have to go now!”

“Yes!” Derek said loudly, forcibly pushing Isaac away from him hard enough that he tripped over his own feet.  He didn’t seem to mind, though, throwing his arms around the neck of the person he fell into and kissing them just as enthusiastically as he had Derek.

“Aw, so soon?” Erica pouted. “What about your food?”

“We’ll take it to go!” Stiles told her quickly. “We can keep the plates right?”

“Totally!” Erica told him, cheerful again. “Have a good night!”

They grabbed their food and picked the way quickly and efficiently through the crowd, which seemed to be turning into an orgy as people kissed each other indiscriminately, hands groping everywhere. Stiles definitely got grabbed in a few no-no zones more than once on his way out the door.

The night was surprisingly quiet when the restaurant doors swung shut behind them, leaving them alone in the parking lot with all the cars.  They headed for the Camaro in utter silence, their plates clenched in their hands.

Stiles didn’t break down laughing until they were seated in the car with the doors closed, but he went from zero to utterly hysterical in mere seconds.  To his surprise, Derek started to laugh too, leaning his forehead against the steering wheel, his shoulders shaking.

“Oh my god,” Stiles said, when he was finally able to stop laughing enough to talk. “Oh my god, Derek, it was totally a weird sex cult!”

“I bet every night just ends in a huge orgy,” Derek laughed, gasping for breath.

“You should have seen your face when Erica planted one on you,” Stiles said. “I think your eyebrows almost went into orbit.”

“You jumped away from her like your pants were on fire,” Derek shot back.

“Dude, someone was under the table trying to get at my dick,” Stiles told him, wiping away tears of mirth.

“I told you we should have left,” Derek said, finally getting enough control over himself to sit back in his seat and start the car.

“Whatever dude, at least we got food,” Stiles told him. “That was totally worth almost being absorbed into an orgy.”

“We haven’t actually eaten it yet,” Derek told him darkly as he pulled out of the parking lot and turned onto the ramp to the thruway. “So we’ll see.”

Six Days Remaining

Stiles ended up getting to drive the Camaro around one in the morning when Derek started to nod off behind the wheel and almost killed them both.  He’d pretty much given Derek the choice of pulling onto the shoulder of I-80 and sleeping there or letting Stiles drive until they found a rest area to stop at.  Derek had given in reluctantly and fallen asleep within minutes of climbing into the passenger seat.  Stiles, gleeful at the purr of the Camaro’s engine under him, had skipped four rest stops before he finally pulled over for the night.  Even though he’d slept all day, he’d knocked out pretty quickly, and neither of them had woken up until nearly ten in the morning.

“Ugh,” Stiles groaned, stretching his legs out as far as he could a few hours after they’d gotten on the road again.  Derek had stubbornly insisted on driving. “Your car is a real beauty, man, but it could be bigger.  I feel like it’s closing in on me.”

“I don’t think anyone ever intended to drive cross-country in a sports car,” Derek grumbled.

“No, probably not,” Stiles admitted, looking wistfully out at the trees that lined either side of the Interstate. “Do you think you could pull over for a minute and let me run around the car?”

“Not on the side of the road,” Derek said, as if he were worried about him getting hit by a car when they literally hadn’t seen another vehicle in over an hour.

“Dude,” Stiles protested, but Derek just repeated himself firmly.

“Not on the side of the road,” he said.

“Ugh, fine,” Stiles grumbled, and then, after a few minutes of silence, “That’s how my dad used to tire me out.”

“‘By making you runs laps around the car?” Derek snorted.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, grinning. “I’ve got ADHD.  As an adult it’s kinda mellowed out and I’ve mostly got a handle on it, but when I was kid I was like a torpedo of energy and noise.  After my mom died, I kinda lost it for a while and my dad had to take me out on patrol with him at night because I’d have panic attacks if I woke up and he wasn’t there.”

Derek made a sad humming noise, like he knew that that was a really sad thing to say but wasn’t quite sure how he should respond to make it better.  Stiles didn’t really mind.  His mother’s death and the way it affected him had become a normal part of the background of his life.  Sometimes he forgot that talking about it could make people uncomfortable.

“It tired me out,” he offered. “I’d run around and around and around until I couldn’t anymore, and then I’d fall asleep in the back seat of his cruiser.”

He’d always felt so safe back there, curled up on the seat behind the grate.  It had never made him feel trapped, only safe, like it was locked around him to protect him rather than keep him in.  He’d always felt so secure in that backseat, with the grape juice stain on the upholstery and the smilie face he’d drawn in green sharpie on the plastic divider between the front and back seats.  His dad had made him scrub it for a whole hour, but it had never quite cleaned off all the way.

“My mom used to do something like that,” Derek said into the silence of the car a few minutes later. “We had this huge house in the middle of the woods, but there were a lot of us so sometimes we’d get all stir-crazy, cooped up in the house together.  So she’d take us out into the woods and we’d run and play until we all tired each other out and then we’d go in and go to bed.  In the morning my dad would make a huge breakfast and we’d all fight over the bacon.”

He sounded wistful, and Stiles wondered what could have happened between him and his family that would take him from romping in the woods to being sure that they wouldn’t want to see him at the of the world. The way he spoke so fondly of that memory clearly said that he missed them.

“Sounds awesome,” he said, not asking because even he knew that it would be rude and pushy.

“Yeah,” Derek said quietly. “I loved it.”

“How many siblings do you have?” Stiles asked, hoping to chase some of the sadness out of Derek’s voice. “I’m an only child.  I mean, my best friend Scott is like a brother to me, but I didn’t like, grow up with other kids in the house.  It’s mostly always been my dad and me.”

“Five,” Derek said. “Three sisters, two brothers.”

“Wow,” Stiles said, letting out a low whistle. “That’s a lot.”

“Yeah,” Derek agreed. “But I kind of liked it, when they weren’t driving me crazy.  Laura was really good at driving me crazy.”

“Are you the oldest?” Stiles asked.

“Second oldest,” Derek said. “Laura’s oldest.  Then me, Cora, Alaric, Nora, and Eric.”

“Your names all rhyme,” Stiles pointed out, fighting a grin.

Derek rolled his eyes powerfully, and Stiles couldn’t help but cackle.

“I know, it’s terrible,” he said. “It’s a tradition on my dad’s side.  His parents had three boys named Shaun, John, and Ron, and a girl named Dawn.  My grandfather and his brother were Horace and Morris.”

“Ooh,” Stiles said with feeling. “Ouch.”

“Yeah,” Derek agreed solemnly. “All things considered, I’m glad I got Derek, even if role call at my house was always like reading Mother Goose.”

“Well, my name is so awful and unpronounceable that I willingly go by Stiles,” he offered.  

They passed a sign that reported that they were twenty miles from Chicago that was covered in a huge spray-painted message that warned them to “Turn Back!”  He snorted at it.  If they were going to embrace the whole post-apocalyptic aesthetic, they might as well go with something more exciting like “Don’t Dead Open Inside”.

“What is your real name?” Derek asked.

“Oh, you don’t know me nearly well enough to have that privileged information,” Stiles said. “As in, literally the only person who knows is my dad and I’m not a hundred percent sure he even remembers how to pronounce it.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Derek insisted.

“It really is,” Stiles said. “It’s Polish.  I don’t know how much you know about Polish, but it’s got way too many consonants and not nearly enough vowels.”

He could see the first Chicago toll approaching in the near distance, which didn’t seem possible consider the sign he’d seen only a few minutes before.  A glance at the speedometer confirmed that Derek was cheerfully going nearly forty miles above the speed limit, which Stiles thought was pretty hypocritical since he seemed convinced Stiles couldn’t be trusted to drive.  He started to slow down as they got closer to the toll booth, though, seeing as all of the gates were down.

“Now I think you’re just making this up,” Derek said. “Your name is probably something terrible like Earl and you just don’t want to admit it.”

“Okay,” Stiles conceded. “Earl is way worse than my name.  But I’m still not going to tell you what--”

Suddenly, there was a smashing noise and the car was swerving out of control.  Stiles’ head smacked against the side window, sending him reeling just enough that it took him a few seconds to realize that Derek had managed to bring the car to a stop.  The air smelled like burned rubber and Stiles’ heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat.  He looked around in confusion, trying to figure out what had happened.  Had they hit something?  Blown a tire?

But, no, the windshield was cracked, and there was a perfectly round hole punched in the middle of it.  It took him an embarrassingly long time to figure out that it was a bullet hole in the window, and even longer to realize that Derek was bleeding.

“Holy fuck,” Stiles said, flapping his hands uncertainly in front of him. “Oh my god, Derek, you’ve been shot.”

“Yeah,” Derek grumbled, sounding far too chill about the bullet in his chest. “I noticed.”

Stiles looked out the window and noticed a group of guys assembling near the toll booths.  They all looked rough, like they came from the worst type of neighborhood, and they were all toting handguns, except for one guy who had what looked to be a high-powered rifle.  They had apparently been lying in wait out there, though for what, Stiles didn’t know.  Maybe they just liked the idea of shooting people.  But they didn’t seem to be shooting anymore, for whatever reason.

“Oh fuck, Derek,” Stiles said, a little hysterical.

“I’m okay,” Derek lied, grimacing in pain when he shifted.  His face was pale and there was so much blood.  Stiles thought he was probably supposed to be putting pressure on the wound, but he was a little afraid to move in case that made the gang of guys start shooting.

“You are not okay!” Stiles hissed.  The group was approaching the car now, all holding their guns casually in front of them.

“You’re gonna get out of the car!” one of the guys in the group, a pale guy with dark hair, said.

“Shit, you fucking shot my friend in the chest, how is he supposed to get out of the car?” Stiles demanded, which was really fucking stupid because they were probably going to shoot him.

“Woulda shot him in the face,” the guy said, shrugging nonchalantly. “Didn’t want to risk wrecking the car, though.”

Stiles couldn’t even believe what he was hearing.  They’d shot Derek in the chest because they wanted the car?  It was so insane it didn’t even make any sort of sense, and he couldn’t get his brain to grasp the idea.

“You fucking killed him for a car?” Stiles demanded, shrilly. “For what?  It’s not even going to matter in six days!”

“Well, I’ll have six days of having a bitchin’ car,” the guy spat. “Now get out, or I’ll just shoot you and drag your body out.  Your choice.”

Stiles scrambled out of the car, knees weak and stomach turning.  Derek was still in the front seat, slumped back with his eyes closed, and Stiles wondered if he really was dead.  He didn’t know where the bullet had hit.  It could have been his heart.  He could have bled out in just the few minutes Stiles had sat there panicking.  The ring leader guy nodded at one of his cronies, and the guy went over and wrenched the driver’s side door open.  He grabbed Derek’s shoulder like he was going to yank him out of the car, and suddenly Derek was wide awake and _snarling_ like a dog.

Stiles gaped as he launched himself out of the car grabbing the nearest guy and breaking his neck with a quick jerk of his hands.  Stiles’ knees finally gave out and he collapsed onto his ass on the asphalt, the car blocking his view of what was happening on the other side.  The guns started firing then, and he huddled against the front wheel well, keeping his head ducked down in hopes of surviving whatever the fuck was happening. He could hear more snarling amidst the gunshots, and lots of screaming.

He pressed his forehead against the black paint of the car, breathing deeply and trying to keep himself from panicking.  He had to run.  He had to get away from the shooting and the snarling and the screams, and sitting on the ground having a panic attack was not the way to do that.

Quite suddenly, the noises all stopped.  There were no more gunshots, no more screams.   Against his better judgment, Stiles pushed himself up on his knees and peered over the hood of the car to survey the scene.  His brain couldn’t really comprehend what it was seeing at first.  It looked, for a crazy moment, like there were a bunch of dead cows bleeding all over the street.  The longer he looked, though, the more his brain began to see, until he realized that he wasn’t looking at cows at all, but rather the pieces of the guys who had attacked them.  They looked like they’d been mauled by a bear.

He turned his gaze to Derek, who was leaning against the other side of the car.  His face was deformed, with a pronounced brow and bright red, glowing eyes.  There were huge fangs protruding from his bloody mouth, and Stiles stared at him, waiting for his brain to catch up and show him what it was really seeing.  It didn’t.  He blinked a few times, and he still saw fangs and glowing eyes and pointy ears.

“Derek,” Stiles croaked.

“Are you okay?” Derek asked, pushing himself up straighter.  He was drenched in blood, probably riddled with bullet holes, and Stiles couldn’t figure out how he could possibly still be alive, let alone standing.

“I…” Stiles said, because he was pretty sure he was not fucking okay.

“I need you to drive,” Derek said.  He shook his head and suddenly his face was the gorgeous one that Stiles had admired from afar for so long.  He still had blood in his beard, though.

“I…” Stiles said. “You…”

“I know,” Derek said.  He was holding his arms over his stomach, like he was trying to hold himself together, but his voice was measured and calm. “But Stiles, I need you to drive.  There might be more of them and we have to go.  I won’t hurt you.”

Stiles almost laughed at that, since there were literal pieces of people strewn across I-80, but instead he forced himself to his feet.  He had no idea what the fuck what was going on, but he did know three things for sure.  One, Derek hadn’t hurt him even though he’d had plenty of opportunity. Two, they couldn’t stay there and wait for someone else to come along and see the carnage.  Three, he still needed to get to California.

He went around the car, passing Derek as he hobbled his way around, holding himself up on the hood as he bled profusely from several places.  Stiles considered helping him, but he was pretty sure he was in shock and he’d probably just make it worse.  Instead, he slid into the driver’s seat of the car, which was still running, and put on his seatbelt.  He tried to ignore the blood spatter on the steering wheel.

“Derek, the gates are still down,” he pointed out, nodding at the boom barriers.

“Drive through it,” Derek said.

“But your car…”

“Stiles!” Derek snapped and Stiles’ heart thudded fearfully.  Derek grimaced and collapsed into the passenger seat.  He managed to close the door behind him, but then slumped against the window and stayed totally still.

“Oh my god,” Stiles said. “Are you dead?  Oh god I think you’re dead!”

He grabbed Derek’s wrist, and pressed his fingers against it searchingly, breathing out a relieved sigh when he felt a pulse.  It seemed pretty strong, so he hoped that he would be okay.  He turned his attention back to the front, trying to avoid noticing the bullet hole in the windshield.  

He revved the engine several times, his hands shaking on the steering wheel, and then he let out a deep breath and floored it.  The Camaro shot forward faster than Stiles could have imagined, and he barely managed to keep it going straight as they slammed into the boom barrier.  He heard some crunching metal that was hopefully just cosmetic, and the barrier snapped like a popsicle stick under the assault.

Stiles kept his foot down hard, speeding through the plethora of toll booths that surrounded Chicago, just in case someone else tried to stop them.  The rest of them seemed abandoned, and all the gates were up, but Stiles didn’t breathe easy until Chicago had shrunk away to nothing in his rear-view mirror.

He pulled into the first rest area he found after his hands stopped shaking and his brain calmed down enough for him to realize that Derek had been shot several times and probably needed a hospital, if he wasn’t already dead.  He didn’t even know if he could find a hospital, and if he could, whether it would be running or not.  If there was a good chance of anyone still working, it was probably hospital staff, but he didn’t really know for sure.

“Derek,” he whispered, even though there was no one around to hear them. “Derek, can you hear me?”

Derek didn’t answer, still slumped against the passenger-side window that was now smeared with blood.  Stiles didn’t know what he was going to do if he was dead.  It wasn’t like he could just leave him there on the side of the Interstate, but he couldn’t drive all the way to California with a corpse in the passenger seat either.  

Plus, he really didn’t want Derek to be dead.  Sure, he’d just killed a bunch of guys with his bare hands, but he had been protecting them.  He’d never seemed particularly dangerous or violent before, and maybe Stiles had hallucinated the whole crazy affair anyway, because it seemed pretty fucking unbelievable.  He had to hope that whatever fuckery had been going on with Derek’s face, if it wasn’t a vivid hallucination, was keeping him alive.

He took a deep breath, which was a mistake, because the whole car reeked of way too much blood.  He scrambled out of the car and puked on the pavement, though he didn’t have much in his stomach to throw up.  It was mostly just dry heaving, which was super fun.  When he finally managed to stop gagging, he took in a few deep breaths of fresh air to get the scent of blood out of the back of his throat and finally made his way around the hood of the car.  The damage wasn’t as bad as he had feared it might be. There was a big dent and the paint had been scratched pretty badly, but other than that and a small crack in one of the headlights, it had held up pretty well from being forced through a stationary object at 90 miles per hour.

Derek was leaning against the door, so it took a couple minutes of creative maneuvering to get it open without dumping him on the ground.  It mostly involved holding Derek’s (incredibly heavy) dead weight up in the seat while trying to push the car door open with his ass and a few awkwardly placed kicks.

“Please don’t be dead,” Stiles muttered when he finally got the door to stay swung open.  He pressed his fingers against Derek’s throat, flinching at the tacky feeling of drying blood under his fingertips.  He found a pulse, thrumming strong and steady under his fingertips, and he breathed a sigh of relief.  

“Dude, I don’t know how you’re still kicking, but I’ve gotta say I’m really glad I don’t have to take up grave digging as a hobby.”

He frowned down at the blood drenching Derek’s hole-ridden shirt.  He was probably still pretty injured under there, and maybe even infected.  Getting his shirt off would definitely be totally okay for medical reasons and not creepy at all.  As hot as Derek was, Stiles was thinking fresh bullet wounds would probably be pretty gnarly looking and not at all attractive.  Still, he had to at least try to clean it up.  It would suck for Derek to live through multiple gunshots and then die from infection.

He knew there was no way he was going to be able to get Derek seated upright long enough to pull his shirt over his head, so instead he just dug his fingers into one of the bullet holes and tore it down the middle.  He’d imagined doing the very same thing in much sexier situations, but the presence of all the blood made it distinctly unsexy.

There was too much blood for him to see any of the actual wounds, which he thought was kind of weird.  He wasn’t a doctor or anything, but he was pretty sure bullets left holes.  He ducked into the backseat to grab one of the bottles of water that Derek had liberated from Starbucks the day before and twisted off the cap before upending half the thing over Derek’s chest to wash the blood away.  He remembered, faintly, Derek growling at him not to spill on his upholstery and had to bite back a laugh.  A little water wasn’t going to hurt anything after the blood, that was for sure.

Stiles used a corner of Derek’s t-shirt to clean away the blood and water, furrowing his eyebrows when all he saw was smooth skin spread over an impossibly perfect set of abs.

“What the fuck,” he muttered, running his hands over Derek’s pecs, checking to make sure there wasn’t a gaping wound hidden somewhere under the dark chest hair. “Dude, what the fuck are you?”

Derek, of course, didn’t answer.  He remained thoroughly unconscious, though apparently fully healed from several bullets to the chest.  It made absolutely no sense, but then again neither did a giant asteroid descending to destroy all human life, so why the fuck not?  A guy who could change his face and kill people with his bare hands and heal faster than made any sort of biological sense.  Sure.  Stiles could deal with that.  Totally fine.  Great.  Awesome.

He sighed and used the rest of the water bottle to clean the blood from Derek’s face, neck, and the passenger side window.  It wouldn’t do for them to roll up somewhere looking like they’d just committed mass murder, even if technically that was what happened.  People didn’t need to _know_ that.  Finally, he wiped down the steering wheel and got back in the car.  Derek was fine, apparently, and they still had to get to California.  There was no use in sitting around waiting for him to wake up when Stiles was perfectly capable of driving.

He pulled back onto the Interstate, putting his foot down hard, trying to put Chicago and all his confused worries behind him.

* * *

When Derek finally woke up five hours later, it was with a snarl.  He sat upright and looked around for a threat, and then finally seemed to realize that they were safe and alone.

“Good morning, Starshine,” Stiles said dryly, not taking his eyes off the empty road even though he desperately wanted to. “How you feeling?”

“What--” Derek said, and then paused, “Where are we?”

“Iowa,” Stiles said. “Still an hour or so until the Nebraska border.”

“You got me out of Chicago,” Derek said.  It wasn’t a question, just a statement.  There was no inflection to his voice, but Stiles still picked up on the surprise.

“Dude, yeah,” he said. “Of course I did.  First of all, you totally saved our asses.  Secondly, this is your car.  I can’t just jack it.”

“You could have, though,” Derek pointed out. “I think most people would have.”

“Well, I’m not most people,” Stiles said.  

He knew Derek had a point.  He’d just seen some really fucked up shit, and any sensible person would have ran for the hills at the first opportunity.  If Stiles was smart, he probably would have too.  He probably should have.  But he’d developed a weird sort of loyalty to Derek in the few hours they’d spent in each other’s company.  He hadn’t had to offer to bring Stiles home to his dad, but he did.  He didn’t have to listen to Stiles prattle on and answer questions about his life, but he did.  Derek had been nothing but good to him, and Stiles didn’t think whatever the hell was going on with his face was going to change that.

“Yeah, I’m beginning to see that,” Derek said, sounding kind of awed.

“So anyway,” Stiles said, tapping his fingertips against the steering wheel. “What the fuck was that?  Are you some sort of vampire or something?”

Derek snorted, like the question was hilarious.  It might have been, if the situation had included less fangs and miraculous healing.  Considering the circumstances, though, Stiles thought it was a perfectly reasonable question.

“There’s no such thing as vampires,” Derek said, dead serious.

“Dude, you are something not-human,” Stiles said, a little sharply. “I saw glowing red eyes and can I just say, my what big teeth you have, grandma.”

“My teeth are normal-sized,” Derek grumbled.  Stiles suspected he’d hit a sore spot. “But you’re not far off.”

“You’re the Big Bad Wolf?” Stiles snarked, but Derek didn’t laugh.  He just raised his eyebrows slightly.

“What, seriously?” Stiles asked when he realized that Derek wasn’t kidding. “You’re a…”

“Werewolf,” Derek said. “Yeah.”

“And that’s less ridiculous than my guess,” Stiles snorted. “Because werewolf is so much easier to believe.”

“You don’t have to believe it,” Derek said, shrugging. “It’s true.”

“I mean, obviously I believe it,” Stiles said, shooting him a scowl. “I saw it with my own two eyes.  I’m just having a hard time... _believing_ it.”

“Right,” Derek said, a smirk spreading over his face. “I see the distinction there.”

“You are such an asshole,” Stiles grumbled. “This whole magical creatures thing is still new for me.”

He turned off at the exit, suddenly realizing that he was totally starving and also had to pee.  Plus, now that Derek was awake, it would be a good opportunity to let him get cleaned up.  He’d done his best to get the blood off, but he was sure that it was still there, all flaky and itchy and awful.

“We’re not creatures,” Derek said, just sharp enough that Stiles knew he’d hit another sore spot. “We’re people.”

“Sorry, man,” Stiles said, shooting him what he hoped was a contrite look. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I know,” Derek said, his shoulders slumping just slightly. “Not everyone is quite as accepting as you, though.  We have our own special slurs just like every other minority group.”

“It won’t happen again,” Stiles promised, then to change the subject, he added, “How long have you been a werewolf?”

“My whole life,” Derek said. “I was born that way.”

“So your whole family?” Stiles prompted.

“Most of them,” Derek said. “Not Nora or Alaric.  Even with two born werewolf parents, the children aren’t always wolves.  My mom was born but my dad was bitten, and that made it even less likely that all of their kids would be wolves.”

“So you were just lucky?” Stiles asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” Derek said. “Nora never seemed to mind being human, though, so maybe it’s less about luck and more about just being what I am.”

Stiles didn’t really know what to say to that, so he just nodded and pulled into a gas station right off the exit ramp.  The place was dark and quiet and Stiles pulled up next to a gas pump just in case they could figure out to turn the power on.

“I guess the only thing I can say is that I’m cool with you and your wolfiness or whatever,” Stiles said finally. “Like, sure, it kind of scared the fuck out of me, but I did take notice that you haven’t hurt or threatened me, so I trust that you’re not gonna start now.”

“Well, I’m ‘cool’ with you and your humanness or whatever,”  Derek responded drily.

“All right!” Stiles said cheerfully. “So we’re cool.  No more kicked puppy looks like I’m gonna ditch you in middle America.  That totally wasn’t a dog joke, by the way.”

“Yeah, Stiles,” Derek said, sounding amused. “We’re cool.”

“Awesome.  And hey, I’m glad you’re okay,” he paused uncertainly. “You are okay, right?”

“If they’d had bigger guns I might not be,” Derek admitted. “And healing that much damage is taxing so I’m exhausted and starving.  But I’m okay, yeah.”

“Good,” Stiles said again.  They both sat there quietly for a long, awkward moment and then Stiles blurted, “Can I see your face again?”

Derek stared at him pointedly with a raised eyebrow and Stiles rolled his eyes.

“You know what I mean: your wolf face.  I know I’m probably being super rude or something, but the curiosity is killing me and I didn’t get a good look before, you know, because of the blood and terror.”

Derek continued to stare at him and Stiles wondered if he was about to get mauled for being super rude.  Finally, though, he cracked a small smile and rolled his eyes.  He gave his neck a roll, like he was preparing to do something particularly athletic, and then his face shifted.  It wasn’t a slow, painful shift like the kind they showed in the movies.  One moment his face was human and the next it wasn’t.

His wolf face wasn’t as terrifying when Stiles was expecting it, but his heart still pounded a bit faster in his chest.  His brow was much more pronounced and his nose seemed to have gained a permanent crinkle, like a disgruntled cat.  Yeah, he had huge, scary looking fangs and glowing red eyes, but he also had pointy ears and seemed to have misplaced his eyebrows.

“I am loving the mutton chops,” Stiles told him when he’d looked his fill. “Like, really, man, President Arthur would be proud of you.”

“Shut up,” Derek snorted. “Are you done looking now?”

“Can I touch?” Stiles asked. “Like I know that’s super weird, but science is all about getting up in…”

“You’re right it is super weird,” Derek interrupted.  His annoyed expression was almost comical on his transformed face and his words were slightly slurred, like he’d never quite figured out how to talk properly around extra teeth.

“So that’s a no?” Stiles asked.

Derek let out a loud, long-suffering sigh.

“Go ahead,” he said, sounding like Stiles had asked him to donate a kidney or something.

“Awesome!” Stiles crowed.  He didn’t quite lunge across the seats, but he did end upkind of slapping his hands onto Derek’s cheeks.  He wasn’t quite sure what he had expected, but Derek’s face just kind of felt like a face.  Sure, the bones underneath the surface were shaped differently, but it was mostly just skin and hair.  He was kind of disappointed.

“I hope you know this is the equivalent of asking a black person to feel their hair,” Derek told him pointedly as Stiles ran his finger along the bridge of Derek’s nose. “We’re not animals for you to pet.”

Stiles snatched his hand back quickly, feeling like an absolute bastard, and Derek twitched and sneezed powerfully.  When he lifted his head, his face was human again.

“Dude, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not trying to be...like, speciesist or whatever.”

“I know you’re not,” Derek said, and he didn’t look mad, which made Stiles feel a little better. “And I know you’re just curious, which is why I’m not angry about it.  But if you happen to meet another werewolf in the next few days, keep your curiosity to yourself.”

“Right,” Stiles said. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Derek said. “Is your curiosity all satisfied now?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “Thanks for being cool about it.”

Silence descended again, so Stiles clapped his hands together and got back to business.

“Okay! So why don’t you go find non-perishable eatables and I’ll go find the circuit breaker and see if we can get some gas.”

“Deal,” Derek said, nodding. “I’m going to find a bathroom, too.  What happened to my shirt?”

“Well how was I supposed to know that you had super magic healing powers?” Stiles demanded, glad that the awkwardness seemed to have disappeared. “I was trying to see if there was anything I could do to save your life, and I’ll have you know you are not easy to lift.  The shirt was ruined anyway.  It’s not like was just like ogling your abs or whatever.”

Derek didn’t say anything, just looked at him with a smirk that was obviously born of being super hot your whole life and knowing it.  He leaned into the backseat of the Camaro and retrieved the small duffle bag he’d packed for their trip, looking far too pleased with himself.

“Sure, Stiles,” he said finally, and then he was gone, sauntering off towards the gas station like a model on a runway. “Also, I can hear it when you lie!” he called over his shoulder.

Stiles kind of hated him.

As it turned out, finding the circuit breaker was pretty easy, and getting the power back on was only a matter of flipping a switch.  He filled the gas tank and then grabbed a couple of the plastic gas cans from inside the shop and filled those up too, just in case.  He didn’t know how long the power grid would hold out, and gas pumps ran on electricity.

Derek came back a few minutes later with a styrofoam cooler packed with ice and a huge reusable shopping bag stuffed with all sorts of jerky and chips and trail mix.  He looked like he’d taken a whore’s bath in the bathroom, and his hair was wet like he’d just dunked his whole head under the tap. The collar of his gray henley was wet from where the water had dripped down his neck and Stiles really wanted to lick him.  Like, all over.

“So I grabbed stuff that seemed easy to eat in the car,” Derek said, and Stiles tore his eyes away from his throat. “But you should probably go in and see if there’s anything you can’t live without.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said slowly, jerking his eyes back to the store and wondering Derek knew how pathetically attracted to him Stiles was.  Maybe it was part of his super werewolf powers.  He made a quick retreat, fleeing with all the grace of a wounded gazelle.

He used the bathroom and followed Derek’s lead in trying to get a bit clean.  There was something special about standing over a tiny sink with a timed faucet and trying to clean off all the blood and sweat that had occurred over the past day.   After his less-than-stellar attempts at a bath, he grabbed enough Mountain Dew Kickstart to kill a small child from the cooler and headed back out to the car.

Apparently the universe hated him, because Derek was bent over with the top half of his body in the car and the back half presented so very beautifully out of it.  He looked to be trying to clean the blood off of his upholstery with the scraps of his ruined t-shirt and a bottle of water.

“I’m not really sure that your upholstery should be our main focus right now,” Stiles told him teasingly.

“If you want to sit on dried blood, be my guest,” Derek responded. “Anyway, my senses are lot stronger than yours and it smells like a murder scene in here.”

“I mean, it kind of was,” Stiles shrugged. “You do you, man, we’ve got nothing left but time, right?”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Derek said.  

He backed out of the car, frowning down at the seat like it had personally offended him.  Stiles couldn’t see anymore blood, but his weak little human eyes were only so good against black leather and the impending darkness.  He could, however, see the pink blood stains flecking the front of Derek’s shirt and he snorted and pointed.  Derek frowned and looked down at himself and then cussed quietly before whipping off his shirt.

Stiles couldn’t really be blamed for what happened next.  Derek was a literal specimen of human perfection, with his tight six pack, the gorgeously cut ‘v’ that lead into his stupidly tight jeans, and the sexy smattering of dark chest hair.  Stiles was only a mere mortal, and he couldn’t handle being exposed to such a gorgeous physique with absolutely no warning.  The world was ending and they'd almost died a few hours before and Stiles had wanted Derek for so long. And Derek, as it turned out, was sweet and funny underneath the gruff, sarcastic exterior.  Stiles actually, legitimately _liked_ him.  That was the only explanation he could come up with for why he closed the distance between them in three long steps, grabbed Derek’s face between his palms, and pressed their mouths together.

Derek made a surprised sound, but he got with the program quickly.  His hands grasped at Stiles’ hips and his head tilted just slightly, so that their mouths fit together in the very best way.  Stiles groaned embarrassingly loudly and moved his arms so that they wrapped around Derek’s shoulders instead of holding his head in place.  It was all firm pressure and hot breaths and the occasional swipe of tongue and Stiles was so into it.  In all the years that he’d been lusting after Derek and all the times he’d imagined making out with him, his brain had never quite been able to sum up the reality.  It was leaving Stiles kind of brain-dead and he was loving every second of it.  Derek was such a great kisser, and he was pretty sure this was the best decision he’d ever made.

Derek pulled away, making Stiles whine pitifully until he latched his mouth onto Stiles’ throat instead, his teeth scraping just on this side of painful, then his tongue pressing forward to soothe the motion.

“Oh my god,” Stiles groaned, tilting his head back so that Derek had more room to work.  Derek seemed to approve, judging by the growl that rumbled through his chest. “Holy fuck, Derek.  I thought you said you weren’t a vampire.  Not to say I’m not enjoying the neck action because I totally am but this is a very-”

“Stiles,” Derek growled, pulling his mouth away from Stiles’ neck, which was the worst. “Shut up.”

“Right,” Stiles said, his voice squeaking when Derek latched onto his neck again. “Totally.  Shutting up.  Absolutely.”

Derek growled again and then hooked his hands under Stiles’ thighs and lifted him up effortlessly, which was the hottest thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life.  As lanky as he was, Stiles wasn’t a small guy, and he'd never met anyone who could man-handle him so easily. It was pretty great.

He groaned loudly, clinging even tighter to Derek’s shoulders and wrapping his legs around Derek’s waist.  Derek turned them both and pressed Stiles’ back up against the Camaro, finally releasing his neck to catch his mouth again.  He was totally overwhelmed in the best possible way, and it was all he could do to hold on for the ride.

And what a ride it was.  Derek used their new excellent position as an opportunity to start rolling their hips together, his dick hot and hard in his jeans.  Stiles groaned loudly again and pulled his mouth away from Derek’s in favor of burying it in his neck instead.  He couldn’t be expected to have any sort of kissing finesse when Derek was scrambling his brain, could he?  It was better to just suck on his neck and concentrate on rolling his hips in tandem with Derek’s.

Derek made another growling sort of noise at that, and his hands tightened their grip under Stiles’ thighs.  His hips changed up their tantalizing rolling pattern for something a bit harder with more thrusting.  Stiles was totally cool with that because suddenly it was like his whole brain had exploded with sparks and stars and a pleasant sort of almost-numbness.

“Oh god, Derek,” he whined against Derek’s neck. “God, just like that.”

Derek didn’t say anything, but he kept up the same pace.  The Camaro was rocking underneath Stiles’ back and Derek’s beard was scratching against the side of Stiles’ face and every movement and feeling was way too much.   Stiles was only vaguely aware that they were dry-humping like teenagers in the middle of a parking lot.  It all felt so amazingly intense he couldn’t even wrap his head around it.

“Derek,” he said urgently. “Derek, I’m gonna come.”

“Do it,” Derek said, his first words since telling him to shut up. “Come for me, Stiles, come on.”

Stiles had always had issues with being told what to do, but this was one order he was happy to follow.  He rolled his hips three more times and then he was coming harder than he had in ages, clinging so hard to Derek’s shoulders that he thought his muscles might lock up.  After a moment, though, all the tension rushed out of him and left him lying limp in Derek’s arms, his back still pressed up against the Camaro as Derek rocked against him a few more times until he came, going stock still with his head tossed back.  Stiles wanted to lean forward and suck a mark onto his throat, but he was too boneless and sleepy to move.  Derek seemed to agree because let Stiles’ thighs go so that he slid back to the ground and then collapsed forward against him, pinning him between Derek’s hard body and the car.

“Dude,” Stiles mumbled appreciatively.  Derek made a what Stiles assumed was a noise of agreement.

His communication skills had clearly hit zero, because he didn’t try to say anything else.  He just let them rest and recover their brains for a few minutes and then ushered Stiles into the back seat of the car to lie down.  It really wasn’t big enough for two grown men, but neither of them seemed to care as they curled up around each other and fell asleep.

Five Days Remaining

The backseat of the Camaro _really_ wasn’t large enough for two grown men to sleep in.  Stiles discovered that the hard way when he woke up a indiscernible amount of time later halfway on the floor with a knee in his back.  He grumbled to himself and scrambled out of the back seat, wincing and grimacing at the feeling of cold dried come in his pants.  Derek stirred slightly, cracking open a glowing red eye, but when he saw that it was Stiles he settled easily into sleep again.

Stiles headed back into the gas station to clean up and use the bathroom again.  It wasn’t quite as easy as a job as he might have hoped and he ended up just stripping off his boxers entirely and shoving them in his pocket before heading back to the car.  He climbed into the passenger’s seat and winched the chair back before slipping falling almost immediately back to sleep.

* * *

The car was moving when he woke up.  If the clock on the dash was right, it was mid-afternoon, which wasn’t all that surprising consider how badly he’d slept while tucked into the back seat.  They passed a sign that informed him they were a little less than an hour away from Denver, which made his heart pound in his chest.  They were getting so close.  It was maybe another seventeen hours of driving and then they would be in Beacon Hills.

Derek was in a new shirt, perfectly identical to the old one except that it was dark purple instead of gray, and his eyes were trained on the road like he was in bumper-to-bumper traffic rather than on the wide-open empty interstate.

Stiles was sure that he had to know that he was awake.  Super senses and all.  So either Derek was avoiding acknowledging him or Stiles was getting super spazzy about the long-awaited sex.  If sex was even really the right word for it.  He was thinking that frottage and mutual orgasms was pretty much sex, but maybe Derek didn’t agree.

“So,” Stiles said, and Derek’s shoulders hunched just slightly.

“Morning,” he muttered.

“Right,” Stiles said.  Apparently they were going with awkward avoidance. “So we’re not gonna talk about last night?  Because, like, I realize that I totally jumped you out of nowhere, but you seemed pretty into it too, so…”

“It’s the end of the world,” Derek interrupted. “It was just end of the world sex, right?”

It most certainly was not end of the world sex.  It was a culmination of two years of hardcore crushing and inappropriate fantasies.  It was like being a mountain climber and finally reaching the summit of Mt. Everest.  If Stiles of now could tell Stiles of a month ago that he’d fucked Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor against the side of his sexy sports car, he’d never have believed it.  He’d dreamed the impossible dream.  But obviously Derek was not as invested in this minor miracle as Stiles was.  What else was new?

“End of the world sex,” Stiles repeated. “Right.  Won’t happen again.”

“Right,” Derek agreed. “I mean...it was good.  I enjoyed it.”

“Yeah, totally,” Stiles agreed quickly. “Thanks for being my...last, I guess.”

“Uh, you’re welcome,” Derek said, awkwardly.

The car fell into utter silence then, and it was excruciating.  Stiles wanted to turn the radio on, even if it was only to hear empty static.  Anything would be better than the awkwardness hanging heavily in the air between them.  He was just about to reach out and fiddle with the radio buttons when the whoop of a siren started up behind them, accompanied by flashing blue and red lights.

“What the fuck?” Stiles asked incredulously, looking over his shoulder.  Sure enough, there was a police car tailing them.

“Does he want us to pull over?” Derek asked, sounding just as surprised as Stiles felt.

“I mean...I guess?  How fast are you going?”

“Who cares?” Derek demanded. “It’s the end of the world and there’s no one else out here anyway.”

“I mean...maybe you should stop?”

“Or maybe I should put my foot down and lose this asshole because I’ve already had a pretty shitty week and I’m not sure I can handle some self-righteous asshole trying to give me a ticket I’ll never have to pay,” Derek shot back, even as he started to slow the car and pulled over to the shoulder.

“I can’t believe this is even happening,” Stiles said as the cruiser pulled to a stop behind them and the cop made a show of taking his time getting out.

“Who is even bothering to set up speed traps right now?” Derek agreed. “We’re all going to die anyway.”

“Shh, he’s coming.”

The cop that swaggered up to the window was kind of exactly what Stiles had been expecting.  He was middle-aged and obviously used to bossing people around and being a dick.  He was probably the kind of guy who called grown men “boy” and drove a pickup truck with a metal scrotum hanging from the tow hitch.

“You have any idea how fast you were going, boy?” he asked, and Stiles awarded himself a mental trophy for hitting _that_ nail straight on the head.  Derek plastered on a smile that looked more like bared teeth than anything else and shook his head.

“Honestly, I wasn’t really paying attention,” he said.

“Well, you were going about thirty miles above the speed limit,” the cop said, like it even mattered.

“Huh,” Derek said, glancing at Stiles, “I thought we were making better time than that.”

Stiles almost choked on his own tongue in his effort not to immediately bust out laughing.  The cop didn’t seem to think that response was as funny as he did though.  In fact, his eyes narrowed and he widened his stance a bit, like he was going for threatening.  Stiles supposed he should have been more worried, since his own father was a sheriff, but honestly it was all just so ridiculous that he couldn’t even deal.

“Also, you’ve got a headlight out,” he added, like that was an even worse offense that might make them treat him with the respect he thought he deserved.

“Right,” Derek said, nodding sagely. “A headlight.”

“Probably happened when I drove through that boom barrier in Chicago,”  Stiles added, because he couldn’t help himself. “You should have seen it, Officer, it was pretty incredible.”

“So why don’t you go ahead and write me an expensive, time sensitive ticket and we’ll be on our way,” Derek concluded sarcastically. “Places to be, you know?  End of days and all.”

The cop’s eyes landed on the bullet hole in the windshield and his face shifted into an ugly scowl.

“I’m going to need you to step out of the vehicle,” he said.

“Dude, are you kidding me right now?” Stiles demanded. “It’s the end of the world, who gives a fuck if we were speeding or not?”

“You clearly don’t care about the safety of others, but I won’t allow your negligent behavior to continue!” the cop barked. “Out of the car, now!”

Derek shot him a glance, his eyes flashing red briefly as if he were asking a question.  Stiles shook his head subtly.  The guy was a grade-A dick, sure, but that didn’t mean he deserved the whole werewolf treatment.  He was, technically, just doing his job, even if it was the most ridiculous fucking thing ever.

They got out of the car and the cop took great pleasure in pushing Derek down roughly over the hood of the car before cuffing him.  Stiles was fairly sure that Derek could just snap those cuffs right off if he had been so inclined, but he let the officer manhandle him and shove him in the back of the car.  The guy was less rough with Stiles, especially after he pulled the “call my dad, he’s a Sheriff” card.

The police station was just as empty and bereft as pretty much everywhere else they’d come across on their trip across the country, but the guy went through all of the steps of booking them, including taking mugshots, which Stiles found kind of delightful if he was being honest.  He’d been a rebellious teenager and had often ended up at the police station due to his misdeeds, but it had always resulted in a trip to his dad’s office and a stern talking-to.  He’d never actually been booked before.

There was no one else in the holding cells either, but the cop seemed to take particular delight in sliding the door shut with a clang.

“Uh, don’t we get a phone call?” Stiles called sarcastically at his retreating back.

“Nope!” he said cheerfully. “Phones are dead!”

The door to the bullpen thudded shut with finality, and Stiles was suddenly sure that they weren’t going to be leaving the cell.  He let out a small, manic-sounding laugh and sunk down onto the bench, resting his head in his hands.

“Well, I guess this is as good a place to die as anywhere,” he said.

“Fuck,” Derek said quietly, settling down to sit next to him. “I’m sorry, Stiles.  I should have just been less of an asshole or kept driving…”

“Hey, man, it’s not your fault,” Stiles said, bumping their shoulders together. “I was just as much of an asshole as you were.”

“Yeah,” Derek agreed, and Stiles couldn’t help the snort that escaped him.

“Thanks.”

They were quiet then for a long while, the clock on the wall outside the cell ticking loudly with every second that passed.  Stiles leaned his head back against the wall and thought about sleeping again, but he’d pretty much slept all day and he wasn’t really tired. Instead, he just gazed up at the ceiling tiles and tried not to panic.

...

“We won’t be stuck here forever,” Derek said almost an hour later, making Stiles jump in surprise.

“What?” he asked, sitting up. He hadn’t been asleep, but he had kind of been lost in thought, so it took his brain a moment to catch up with what Derek was saying.

“I’ve been looking,” he said, nodding at the metal grating that made up the bars of the cell. “I could probably bend the metal pretty easily, but those openings are way too small to do us much good.  But I might be able to break the door off the hinges with enough force; it’s a weak point.   And really, if that fails, I can punch through the wall.”

Stiles snorted loudly, but Derek just looked at him seriously.

“Dude, what?” Stiles demanded, wondering how Derek could possibly miss the humor of the situation. “You’re just gonna punch through the wall?  Through like ten inches of solid concrete?”

Derek just raised an eyebrow at him, like he was stupid for even having to ask.  He supposed it was fair enough, since he’d seen Derek do some pretty unbelievable things in the last two days, but he was still having a hard time believing anyone outside of the Incredible Hulk could punch straight through a wall.

“Okay, man, whatever,” Stiles huffed. “If you say you can do it, I’ll believe you.  If nothing else, I’ll sincerely enjoy watching you try.”

“We’ll have to wait until he leaves,” Derek said. “He’ll definitely hear if I try while he’s in the next room, and I don’t think you’ll fare as well against bullets as I do.”

“Yeah,” Stiles snorted. “Probably not.  How will we know when he leaves?”

“I can hear him,” Derek said, shrugging.

“Can you really?” Stiles asked, interested.

“Yes,” Derek said.  He leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes, and tilted his head just slightly to the side. “He’s making coffee.”

“So he’s probably gonna be here for a while,” Stiles sighed. “Do you think maybe he’s just here all the time?  What if he never goes home?”

“He has to sleep at some point,” Derek said, shrugging. “Plus, if he’s going to set up more speed traps, he’ll have to leave then, too.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “Good point.  So I guess it’s just a waiting game.”

“Yep,” Derek agreed. “We just have to have patience.”

“Right,” Stiles said.

They fell quiet for a few minutes and Stiles scanned their surroundings.  It wasn’t really any different than what he had expected from a holding cell.  There was the one he and Derek were in and the empty one directly next to it, which Stiles suspected was for women.  There was big desk in the corner laden with papers and other random odds and ends, and then the door that led out to the bullpen.  Other than that, there was nothing to look at, and Derek had settled with his head back against the wall and his eyes closed.  Stiles wasn’t sure if he was listening to Officer Asshole or just preparing for a nap, but either way, it wasn’t going to fly.

“Hey Derek?”

Derek hummed questioningly, not opening his eyes.

“I’m not so great at patience.”

“I’m not all that surprised to hear that,” Derek said.

“So, entertain me.”

“How?” Derek asked. “We’re kind of locked up.”

“Well, yeah,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. “Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“Tell me more about your family.”

Any serenity Derek might have had about their situation seemed to vanish.  His whole body went visibly tense as he sat up straight and finally opened his eyes.  They looked dark and sad, and Stiles regretted asking.  He was just about to splutter his way awkwardly through an apology when Derek’s shoulders slumped and he spoke.

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know, anything.  Who’s your favorite sibling?”

A tiny, sad smile stretched over Derek’s face, and he shook his head like he was remembering something fondly.

“Nora,” he said.

“And Nora is human?” Stiles clarified.

“Yeah,” Derek nodded. “She used to follow me around everywhere when we were kids.  It drove me crazy and my mom always made me let her tag along.”

“I’m an only child, so I never really had that experience,” Stiles admitted. “It was just me and Scott.”

“I’m lucky I didn’t have to bring all four of my younger siblings with me everywhere,” Derek said, sounding fondly exasperated. “The others kind of did their own thing, but Nora always wanted to be with me all the time.  She used to copy everything I did, and I was always getting in trouble for ‘setting a bad example’.”

“But she was still your favorite?” Stiles asked.

“Yeah,” Derek said. “I had this fort I built in the woods near my house and she always wanted to come with me.  One time when she was seven and I was thirteen, she tried to follow me out there and I ran away and left her behind.  She wasn’t nearly as fast as me and she couldn’t follow her nose back to the house like I could, either.  She got lost for hours and it was way past dark when we finally tracked her down.  Mom was so mad.  I got grounded for a month.”

“Ouch,” Stiles winced. His dad had never really been big on the groundings, probably because he knew that he wasn’t home often enough to actually enforce them.

“Yeah,” Derek agreed with his sad smile. “But the whole time I was grounded, Nora hung around and tried to keep me entertained.  She brought me books from the library and played board games with me.  She wasn’t even mad that I basically abandoned her in the woods.  So the next time I went out there, I took her with me, and we got really close after that.  I told her everything.  She was the only one who knew about…”

He stopped abruptly, the smile sliding off his face like someone had slapped it off.  Stiles wanted to question and needle and press.  He wanted to know what he had told her about.  Maybe it had something to do with how he had become so distant from his family.  As much as it pained him, though, he knew it was none of his business.  As a teenager he might have pressed until Derek broke, but he liked to think, as an adult that he was a little bit more mature and could let things go.

“Well, it’ll be good to see her again, won’t it?” Stiles asked. “I mean, end of the world notwithstanding and all.”

Derek hesitated for a long moment, but then nodded and said, “Yeah.  Really good.  I’ve missed her a lot.”

“How long has it been since you last saw her?” Stiles asked.

“Ten years.”

Stiles let out a low whistle.  Ten years ago, he’d only been eleven years old.  He couldn’t imagine not having talked to his dad in that long.

“Wow,” Stiles said. “That...that’s a long time.”

“Yeah,” Derek agreed. “But sometimes it feel like no time has passed at all.”

“So,” Stiles said, sensing that the family conversation had ended. “Why did you move to New York?”

“To get away,” Derek said.

“From your family?” Stiles asked, and Derek shook his head.

“From an ex,” he said. “It ended badly and I needed to get away.  So I did.”

“Badly enough that you had to move across the country?”

“Yeah,” Derek said shortly.

“Right,” Stiles said, and then because he was an idiot he added, “I’ve never really had that problem.  I think I’ve kind of had the opposite of that problem, actually?”

Derek shot him an unreadable look, but then he rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I doubt it.”

“I mean,” Stiles clarified, “I’ve always been a serial monogamist.  I fall in love at the drop of a hat and it’s like, intense and all consuming.  And crazy enough, teenagers and college students don’t love that.”

“You chase people away by being too loving?” Derek asked.   He sounded doubtful, like the idea itself was absurd.

“I’ve been on the receiving end of more than one break up speech that included the words ‘clingy’, ‘needy’, and ‘I need my space’,” Stiles told him wryly. “I mean, I get that people my age aren’t usually looking to settle down or whatever.  And I can be way too intense.  I guess my problem is that I don’t tend to fall ass over tea kettle for people who are similarly intense. I’m like relationship stupid or something.”

“I have never had a relationship that didn’t end badly,” Derek said, like he was sharing a secret.

“Dude, you don’t have to try to make me feel better…”

“No, really,” Derek said.  He shifted and lifted one knee onto the bench, so that he was facing Stiles with one shoulder pressed up against the walls. “My first girlfriend, Paige, died when we were fifteen.  My second was...well, she ruined my life and I let her do it.  The third was a woman named Braeden.   She wasn’t a bad person, but we were both way too fucked up to make it work and eventually she just left in the middle of the night with no warning and no note.”

“Dude,” Stiles said, with feeling, because he didn’t know what else to say.  At least all of his breakups had happened in person, and no one had been dead at the end.

“Yeah,” Derek snorted. “So you see why I’ve basically written off relationships forever.  It’s like I’m cursed or something.”

“You’re not cursed,” Stiles insisted. “You just never found the right person.”

“And now I never will, I guess,” Derek said.  He didn’t even sound sad about it, just resigned, like he’d long ago accepted that he’d die alone.

“I guess me too,” Stiles agreed. “But I can say that, thanks to you, I’m going out with a bang.  In more ways than one.”

Derek snorted. “What do you mean?”

“Well, this is kind of embarrassing to admit,” Stiles said, moving so that he copied Derek’s position, facing him with his knee tucked up on the bench. “But I have had a gigantic crush on you ever since the first time I saw you in the lobby of our building.  I seriously talked about you to Scott all the time.  Last night at the gas station was basically the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Derek stared at him for an uncomfortably long time, his brow wrinkled in confusion.  Stiles was beginning to wonder if he should be moving to the other side of the cell when Derek shook his head and said,

“No you didn’t.”

“What?” Stiles squawked. “Dude, yeah I did!  I totally did!”

“Then why did you act like it was such a mistake earlier?” he demanded. “Saying it was just end of the world sex and that it wouldn’t happen again?”

He looked almost hurt, like he thought Stiles was jerking him around by his emotions for fun.

“Uh, because you said that!” Stiles shot back, offended. “I was totally ready to be my usual clingy self and latch onto you like a barnacle but _you_ said that it was just end of the world sex!”

“Well,” Derek said slowly. “That’s just because I thought that was what you were going to say.  I mean, we fell asleep together and then when I woke up you were in the front seat and it wa slike nothing had happened.”

“Derek,” Stiles sighed, nudging their knees together. “I woke up in the middle of the night half on the floor and sticky, so I went and cleaned up and moved to the front seat to sleep.  And then when I woke up you were acting all weird and telling me that it was end of the world sex and it didn’t mean anything so I just agreed with you.”

“Well, I thought you were trying to blow me off so I went on the defense,” Derek admitted, sounding a little embarrassed. “I told you I’ve never had a relationship end well and I figured this was just another one to add to the list.  That I’d ruined it before it even started.”

“Dude,” Stiles said, scrubbing his hands over his face tiredly.

“You never even spoke to me until the literal end of the world!” Derek said. “I was always hanging around the mailboxes when I knew you’d be around, but you never said anything to me, even though I watched you have conversations with literally everyone else.  I figured you hated me or something.”

“I thought you were like way too hot and cool to even approach!” Stiles shot back. “You can be really intimidating sometimes.  Why didn’t you ever say anything to me?”

“Because every relationship I’ve ever been in has ended terribly!” Derek growled. “I just liked...looking at you.  I didn’t think anything would come from it…”

“Looking at me?  What about me? I’m skinny and awkward.  Do you seriously expect me to believe that you’ve been crushing on me as long as I’ve been crushing on you?”

It just didn’t seem probable.  End of the world sex, when Stiles was pretty much the only person around?  Sure, he could believe that.  Getting jumped by someone after a day of haywire emotions and near-death experiences and deciding to go along with it?  He could understand that too.  But the idea that someone as gorgeous as Derek had spent months hanging around hoping just to catch a glimpse of someone like Stiles?  That didn’t make sense.

“Do you really think I’d offer to drive just anyone across the whole country at the end of the world?” Derek asked simply.

“Well...you said you were going to see your family!” Stiles protested, even though he knew as he said it it was a lackluster argument at best. Derek had repeatedly stated that his family wouldn’t want to see him, but he was still making the trip.

“I wouldn’t be if I wasn’t taking you to California,” Derek pointed out.

“But I thought you were just being nice!” Stiles said.  He didn’t know why he was fighting this so much.  If Derek said he had feelings, than he had feelings.  It was just kind of hard to accept.  Honestly, the werewolf thing seemed more believable, somehow.

“I’m not a nice guy, Stiles,” Derek said, rolling his eyes. “I’m moody and antisocial and I have a bad attitude.  But at the end of the world, I just figured if I was going to spend my last days with someone, it might as well be the guy I never got the courage to actually talk to.”

Stiles stared at him for a long moment, his heart fluttering in his chest.  It seemed kind of unfair, that they’d both been so aware of each other for so long and had only realized it when it was almost too late.  There were mere days left in their lives, and they were locked up in a cell.  Even if they weren’t, they had to get to California.  Stiles had to be with his dad at the end, and Derek had to go make up with his family.  It was pointless and futile to try and have anything between them.

Stiles kissed him anyway.

Derek was right there with him, though, his hands immediately coming up to cradle Stiles’ chin.  It felt cherishing and sweet, and Stiles couldn’t believe he’d spent so long missing out on it.  They kissed slowly, carefully, for several long minutes, fingers stroking skin and sliding through hair.  It was nothing like their frantic romp in the parking lot.  It was more like a first date kiss, where there was all excitement about the prospect of a new relationship.  Uncertain and searching, but still bright and shocking like a flare.  It was the kind of kiss that created sparks, and it made Stiles’ heart feel twisted and mushy in his chest.  At least, it did until until Derek pulled back suddenly and let out a loud yawn.

“Sorry,” he said, blushing. “I didn’t sleep very well last night…”

“Yeah, me neither,” Stiles said with an indulgent smile. “That’s why I moved to the front seat to sleep, remember?”

“I just thought you were trying to create a boundary,” Derek said quietly. “Like, letting me know without words that it wasn’t going to happen again.”

“Sorry,” Stiles offered. “I didn’t mean to.  Just know that it can totally happen again, okay?  I mean, not in here because cameras, yikes, but I’m yours until the end of the world, okay?”

Derek offered a smile, small and sweet, and nodded.

“Yeah, okay,” he said.

“Okay,” Stiles said. “Why don’t you take a nap for a while?”

“I have to keep an ear out,” Derek said, nodding towards the door.

“We both know he’s not leaving for a while,” Stiles said. “Since we’re stuck here you might as well catch some sleep.  Go ahead and lay down, come on.”

He nudged and prodded at Derek until he gave in and stretched out along the length of the bench, using Stiles’ lap as a pillow.  Stiles threaded his fingers through Derek’s thick, dark hair-just because he’d wanted to for so long-and gave it a light tug.

“What are you going to say to your family, when you see them?” Stiles asked him, quietly.

“Probably just...tell them that I’m sorry,” Derek said, not meeting his gaze.

Stiles leaned down and kissed him softly a few times.

“They’ll forgive you,” he said.

“What are you going to say to your dad?” Derek asked.

“Not much, probably,” Stiles said honestly. “We were never big on talking about feelings.  We’ll probably eat a meal together, maybe pop in our favorite movie and just chill.  But we’ll be together, like we should be.”

“Sounds nice,” Derek murmured, his eyes drooping tiredly.  Stiles kissed him once more, just because he could, and let him drift off to sleep.

Four Days Remaining

Stiles woke up the next morning to the sounds of someone cussing angrily.  He lifted his head, his back and neck aching from the way he’d slept slumped over in a seated position, and saw a different cop than the one that arrested them the day before.  He was older, looking to be somewhere in his early fifties, the kind of cop that did more paperwork than anything else. He was struggling with the door and an overly full cup of coffee, which kept sloshing over the sides and onto his hands.  

The noise he was making roused Derek from his sleep, and he sat up with an adorably confused snuffling noise.  The cop stopped in his tracks and looked over at them, sloshing more coffee over his hands.  They stared at each other through the bars for a long moment and then the cop heaved a huge sigh and said, with feeling, “God damn it, Jim!”

A few minutes later, they were out of the cell and being given their personal effects back.

“I’m sorry about this,” Officer Call-Me-Jerry said. “Jim’s gone a bit crazy about the quota lately.”

“You don’t say,”  Stiles said dryly. “Where can we pick up our car?”

“Well,” Jerry said, hesitating. “Unfortunately, it’s been impounded.”

“Dude!” Stiles protested, his heart sinking. “We have to get to California!  We don’t have thirty days!”

“I know,” Jerry said quickly, raising his hands as if to ward off his anger. “I know, and I’ll do my best to get it out for you, but it might take a few hours.”

“Shit,” Stiles sighed, looking at Derek.  His face was impassive, but he rubbed a hand over Stiles’ back in a comforting gesture.  Jerry looked between the two of them, his expression sad and regretful.

“How about,” he said slowly. “How about I take you home to meet the wife?  You boys can get a shower in and eat a square meal while I get your car for you.  How does that sound?”

Stiles glanced at Derek again, questioningly, and Derek met his gaze with a shrug.  They’d already survived the sex cult and the Chicago gang and a night in a holding cell.  What more could Jerry’s wife possibly throw at them?

“Yeah, sure,” Stiles said. “That sounds good.  Thank you.”

“It’s the least I can do,” he insisted.

* * *

Jerry lived in a small ranch-style house.  It was painted bright yellow and had an attached garage and a bay window on the left side.   There was a pair of children’s bikes lying abandoned in the driveway and toys littered the large front yard.  It reminded Stiles of his childhood home, though he couldn’t really place his finger on why.  It looked nothing like his dad’s house; it wasn’t even the same color.  Still, something about it felt like home and childhood and safety.

“Gayle!” Jerry called as they entered the house. “We have guests!”

Jerry’s wife turned out to be a gorgeous blonde woman that Stiles really had not expected.  She was incredibly kind, though, immediately offering them a shower and something to eat.  Stiles let Derek use the shower first, since he sincerely doubted he’d managed to clean off all the blood in the gas station bathroom the other day.  Stiles sat at the kitchen island to wait for his turn while Gayle searched the cupboards for something to eat.

“Honey,” she said as she pulled a box of Bisquick down from the cupboard. “You left your radio on again.  People have been calling signs all over the place and every time I open the back door I hear it…”

“Wait,” Stiles said, sitting up with interest. “Do you have a Ham Radio?”

“Oh yeah,” Jerry said, lighting up. “It’s been a hobby of mine for a long time, and I’ve gotta say it’s really come in handy since the satellites stopped transmitting…”

“Can I borrow it?” Stiles interrupted excitedly. “I mean...I’m licensed and everything, my dad got me into it when I was younger, and I haven’t spoken to him since the satellites…”

“Of course you can!” Jerry said. “Come on, I’ll show you down!”

Jerry led him out into the backyard, and Stiles looked around for any sort of shed or something. He was surprised when he didn’t see one.  Jerry didn’t seem bothered at all.  He just led him to the middle of the yard with purpose.  He stopped and knelt down almost smack in the center of lawn, feeling at the grass with his hands.  Stiles was about to start asking if he’d lost it when he made a tiny ‘aha!’ noise and started peeling back a section of sod that had blended almost perfectly with the natural grass around it.  Underneath the sod was a large bulkhead door with a wheel handle set in the middle.  Jerry gave it a few turns and the whole thing sprang open easily, revealing a spiral staircase leading down into the ground.

“The house was built in the fifties,” Jerry offered as explanation as they made their way underground. “And when it was built, they also had an emergency bunker put in the backyard.  You know, in case of Russians and nuclear war.  Who’d have thought it would come in handy nowadays?”

“So you’re going underground?” Stiles asked, looking back at up the small circle of sky at the top of the chamber. “Do you think it’ll work?”

“Who knows?” Jerry sighed, opening up a second door that led into a pretty large space that must have taken up most of the back yard.  There was a living room and a tiny kitchen and a few doors that led off to what must have been bedrooms and a bathroom. “But I think it’s worth a try.  We’ve got enough food down here to last us a year, maybe a year and a half, if we ration carefully.”

“Wow,” Stiles said, surprised. “You’re really prepared.”

“Yessir,” Jerry said, and then he made an apologetic face and added,  “But I’m afraid there’s only room for me and my family down here.”

“No, that’s okay,” Stiles said quickly. “I understand.  I’ve gotta get back to my dad, anyway, and I hear he’s got a good lead on some school desks, so…”

Jerry forced a laugh, looking like he wanted nothing more than to offer them refuge.  They both knew it couldn’t happen though.  Jerry had to protect his family, and Stiles had somewhere he had to be.  Jerry spared him a sad smile and led him into the living room area where a ham radio was set up on a small table.

“I don’t know how well it’ll work once we get the whole place sealed up,” Jerry admitted. “But for now the signal is pretty strong as long as we keep the doors open.”

“Thanks, Jerry,” Stiles said, more grateful than he could put into words. “Like really, thanks so much.”

“No problem, kiddo,” Jerry said. “You go ahead and take your time down here.  I’m gonna go head out and start working on getting your car, okay?”

“Thanks,” Stiles said again, and then Jerry was making his way back up, leaving Stiles alone with the Ham radio, his heart in his throat.

He carefully set the radio to the right frequency, the one he and his dad had agreed on when he was little.  Stiles had watched Night of the Living Dead and had wanted so badly to have a zombie apocalypse plan, demanding to know how they would find each other if they got split up.  His dad had humored him, and they’d agreed on a frequency and call signs to contact each other in case of emergency.  He could only hope that his dad remembered as well as Stiles did and had left his radio on.

“This is WA6CDE,” he said into the receiver, his voice shaking just slightly. “Whiskey Alpha Six Charlie Delta Echo calling for WA6KNI, Whiskey Alpha Six Kilo November India.”

There was no response immediately, but he waited a few minutes and then tried again, listing his call sign and then his dad’s.  It was another long few minutes of waiting.  He tried again.  By the time he was ready to try for a fourth time, Derek had come down into the bunker with two plates piled high with homemade biscuits and gravy.  Stiles was a growing boy, but he was pretty sure he couldn’t even eat half of what Gayle given him.

“This is WA6CDE,” he tried again, desperately. “Whiskey Alpha Six Charlie Delta Echo calling for WA6KNI, Whiskey Alpha Six Kilo November India.”

“Maybe he’s just busy,” Derek offered. “Or maybe he doesn’t have his radio on.”

“Yeah,” Stiles sighed. “Maybe…”

And then his dad’s voice sounded from the speakers, sounding so familiar and desperate that it brought tears to Stiles’ eyes.

“I hear you loud and clear WA6CDE,” he said, and Stiles almost dumped his whole plate on the ground in his fumbled hurry to get the receiver back up to his mouth.

“Dad?” he said, his voice choked up.

“Stiles!” his dad said, and Stiles could hear the relief in his voice even across the radio waves. “God, kid, I’ve been so worried about you!  I heard about the riots in New York and I wasn’t able to get in contact with you…”

“I’m okay!” Stiles assured him quickly, wiping some of the tears from his face. “We got out before any trouble started, we’re okay.”

“Who’s we?” his dad demanded. “Where are you?”

“I’m with a friend,” Stiles told him. “Derek. We’re in Colorado, Dad, we’re making our way to California.”

“Oh god, kid, you’re so close,” his Dad said, and Stiles could hear the relief and joy in his voice. “How long until you get here?”

“We’re having some trouble with the car,” Stiles said. “I’ll explain when we get there.  We’re still about fifteen hours out, but it’ll be a while before we can leave where we are right now.”

“Okay, but you’re safe?” his dad asked. “You’re okay?”

“I’m totally fine, dad,” Stiles promised, wishing that they were face to face, that he could hug his dad and never let go.

“Good,” he said. “Good, I’m glad to hear it.”

“What about you?” Stiles asked, curling the receiver cord around his fingers. “Are you okay?  What about Scott and Melissa?”

“We’re all fine,” his dad promised. “Beacon Hills has been pretty peaceful.  We’ve had...quite a few suicides, but other than that…”

“Good,” Stiles said. “God, Dad, I miss you so much.”

“I miss you too, kid.  But you’ll be here soon, yeah?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Stiles promised.

“It’ll be good to see your face,” he said.

“Yours too,” Stiles agreed.

“Stiles…”

There was some ambient noise in the background and then the sound of the Sheriff cursing softly.

“Kid, I’ve got to go,” he said. “We’ve got a bit of a situation over here and I need to handle it.”

“Okay,” Stiles agreed reluctantly.  He knew his dad had to keep the peace and do his job.  Not only was it his duty, but he just wasn’t the kind of man to let things get out of control. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too, kid,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”

The frequency went quiet and Stiles flipped the radio off.  He didn’t even realize until Derek wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hugged him close that he was crying, tears running down his face freely.

“You’ll see him soon,” Derek promised. “That wasn’t good bye.”

Stiles sniffled loudly and pressed his face into Derek’s shoulder until he got his tears under control.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you’re right.  Sorry I’m such a mess.”

“It’s okay,” Derek said. “I understand.  But you should eat. Who knows if we’ll ever get a nice hot meal like this again, right?”

Stiles nodded numbly, but he didn’t pull away from Derek’s side.  It made eating kind of awkward, but it was worth it for the warm press of a body against his and the feeling that he wasn’t totally alone.

Three Days Remaining

Jerry didn’t manage to get Derek’s Camaro back to them until late that night, and Gayle had insisted that they spend the night, saying it was far too dangerous for them to get back on the road in the middle of the night.  They had been reluctant to stay, but Gayle had been insistent, and the smell of the huge ham she was baking for dinner was enough to convince them to stay.  They’d eaten around the table with Jerry and Gayle and their two young, blonde daughters.  It had been a little weird and awkward, but mostly nice.

After dinner, Stiles had taken a long, hot shower and they’d both curled up together in the guest bedroom to sleep on an actual bed for the first time in days.  Stiles had slept harder than he had since leaving New York, and waking up curled around Derek had been a really nice bonus.

They hit the road early the next morning, and they made quick work of Colorado, Derek promising he wouldn’t stop if someone else tried to pull them over.  They passed Salt Lake City nearly six hours after they left, and it wasn’t long after that that they came across a procession to the Great  Salt Lake.  They were crossing the road without a care in a huge line of all sorts of people.  Young, old, black, white, parents and children.  They were all dressed in beach clothes and lugging umbrellas and coolers and towels along with them.

Derek and Stiles looked at each other silently and seemed at the same time to make the decision to get out of the car and follow them.  It wasn’t like they could get past the blockade of people without running anyone down anyway, and Stiles was desperately curious to see what they were all doing.  They followed the procession all the way down to the beach.  Some people were spreading out and setting up their gear; big colorful beach umbrellas, towels and coolers, and portable barbecues.  One guy was busy getting a fire pit started, building a teepee of  sticks in the middle of a stone circle he’d assembled himself. Others remained in line and walked all the way to the water’s edge to meet a man in white robes who was baptising people in the lake water.

“Wanna get baptised?” Stiles asked jokingly.  Derek rolled his eyes and let out a tiny smile.

“I’m pagan,” he said. “We werewolves have our own gods.  Not that we were ever particularly religious, but we always celebrated the solstices, so I guess some of it stuck.”

“Cool,” Stiles said, nodding along. “Me and my dad were never really religious either.  My mom was Eastern Orthodox and she went to mass every week, but she could never get me to sit still and stay quiet long enough to get through a whole service.”

“I can’t imagine you having trouble keeping quiet,” Derek said teasingly, and Stiles shoved him.

Someone turned on an old school boombox, one of the small 90’s ones with a CD player that ran on like six D batteries.  The radio was playing a news broadcast about the approach of Matilda and several people groaned loudly until someone broke out a case of mix CDs and popped one of those in instead, filling the beach with the cheerful sounds of 80’s pop.  The people down by the water were all smiling and talking to each other while waiting to be enthusiastically dunked into the lake.  The people on the beach were breaking out all different kinds of food and chatting with each other happily.  A few couples were dancing together in the sand, and one man was spinning a little girl around in circles while she stood on his toes and grinned up at him.

Stiles turned to look at Derek again and he was blown away by the smile on his face.  It wasn’t small and sad like the one Stiles was used to.  It wasn’t even sarcastic or smirky.  It was a full-blown, wide, real smile.  It stretched his face in a way Stiles had never seen, revealing his large front teeth and crinkling up the corners of his eyes.  Standing there on the beach with the sun shining off his hair and a gorgeous smile on his face, Stiles thought that he could love him.  Derek seemed to catch on to his staring and turned towards him, so Stiles pressed forward and kissed him softly.  Derek smiled against his mouth and took his hand, lacing their fingers together.

“Want to stick around for a while?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “Definitely.”

They made their way over to a group of people assembled around the firepit and introductions were made.

“So, what’s going on here?” Stiles asked a girl named Kira who was focusing on perfectly browning a marshmallow.

“It’s an end of the world party,” she told him, smiling sweetly. “There’s nothing we can do, so we might as well have a good time and appreciate the world and connect with each other while we can, right?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said slowly, thoughtfully.  He looked around at the assembled people who were talking, eating, and laughing together and realized for the first time that they were mostly strangers to each other. “I guess that makes sense.”

“I think it makes total sense,” she said. “Nothing else really matters anymore, does it? All there is left to do is have some fun and appreciate what we have while we still have it.”

“I’ll drink to that,” he said, clinking the bottle of Angry Orchard someone had pressed into his hand against her marshmallow stick.

She giggled and withdrew her marshmallow from the fire, pulling the gloopy mess of her stick and sticking it in her mouth before it could melt all over her fingers.  He looked away from her, glancing around the circle of people.  There was a man trying to teach a younger woman how to play the guitar.  They both laughed as her fingers fumbled along the strings, picking out a random assortment of notes that didn’t appear to make any actual song.

“So, are you staying here?” Stiles asked. “On the beach until the end?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Kira said. “Unless it gets cold.  What about you?  Your boyfriend seems to be having a great time.”

She nodded over to where Derek was entertaining a group of rambunctious children.  He had one clinging to his back and two hanging of each arm, shrieking with delight when he swung them back and forth.  Stiles had never seen him look quite so happy, and he wondered what had set it off in him.  He loved seeing it, but he had to admit that Derek had been frowny and serious pretty much consistently since the first time Stiles had seen him.

“We’re going to California to see our families,” Stiles told her absently, eyes still glued to Derek.

“That should be nice,” Kira said. “My dad wanted to go to Korea to see his parents, but the flights sold out too fast.  He puts on a good front, but I know he’s sad about it.”

“Yeah, I was kind of in the same situation,” Stiles told her. “We live in New York.  I’m just lucky that Derek kept a car there and was willing to drive me or we’d still be there.”

“Well, it’s obvious that he loves you,” Kira says. “I think there’s more to it than luck.”

“You think?” Stiles asked, looking at Derek again.  He had one kid trying her damndest to climb up from his back onto his shoulders, but she kept slipping and his hands were full with several other children.

“Oh, definitely,” she said. “Look at the way he smiles at you.”

As if on cue, Derek turned his head to look at them and grinned widely, not seeming to mind the children trying to climb him like a jungle gym.  He kind of took Stiles’ breath away.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, feeling utterly smitten as he returned the smile. “It’s nice.”

“It’s more than nice,” Kira said, elbowing him gently with a grin. “It lights up his whole face.”

…

That night found them curled up together in the sand, Stiles laying half on top of Derek with his head tucked just under his chin, Derek’s hand a warm weight on his back.  Most of the beach goers had also found a bit of sand to sleep on, and some were even still partying, though in a quieter, subdued way out of deference to those who were sleeping.

“What are you gonna miss most about the world?” Stiles asked quietly, not quite ready to give into the pull of sleep yet.

“I don’t know,” Derek responded, rubbing his hand up and down Stiles’ back soothingly. “Coffee, maybe.”

“Oh yeah,” Stiles groaned. “I love coffee.  I’m gonna miss riding the subway.”

Derek snorted and Stiles felt him shaking his head, “Riding the subway is awful,” he protested.

“Sometimes, but there’s also some primo people-watching to be had,” Stiles insisted. “I kinda liked just seeing people in the middle of their lives doing people things.”

“You’re so weird,” Derek sighed, sounding perfectly content about it. “I’ll miss going for runs in the woods.”

“Ugh, running is the worst,” Stiles grumbled. “I’ll miss snarking with my dad.  He’s a world-class snarker.”

“I’ll miss Brooklyn-style pizza,” Derek said. “Nothing better than a grabbing a slice at two in the morning when everything seems like shit.”

“Oh god, drunk pizza,” Stiles agreed. “And tacos.  I’ll miss tacos.”

“And the feeling that listening to my favorite songs gives me,” Derek said, a little quieter, almost sadly. “I’ll miss that.”

Stiles tilted his head back and kissed the bottom of Derek’s chin softly, hoping it offered even the tiniest bit of comfort.

“I’ll miss you,” he said.

Derek’s arm tightened around his waist and held him close. “I’ll miss you, too.”

Two Days Remaining

They woke up around 9 the next morning when the rest of the camp started to stir and come back to life.  They stayed long enough to eat some breakfast and say goodbye to the people they’d befriended before hitting the road at eleven.  Derek had had to fend off a group of wailing children begging him not to go yet, and it was probably the most adorable thing Stiles had ever seen.

They still had around eight hours of driving ahead of them, and they passed it talking quietly about anything and everything, learning tiny tidbits of information about each other.  They stopped once for lunch and another time for gas, but it seemed like no time at all before their surroundings started to get intimately familiar, and before Stiles knew it they were pulling past the “Welcome to Beacon Hills!” sign.

“Holy shit, Der,” he said in an almost reverent whisper. “We actually made it!”

“I told you I’d get you here,” Derek said, looking way too satisfied with himself. “Which way to your dad’s house?”

Stiles gave him directions, bouncing in his seat more and more the closer they got to the house.  By the time Derek pulled to a stop in front of the familiar facade with the faded blue paint, he was ready to duck and roll out the door and take his chance with hitting the ground.  He had the door open before Derek put the car in park, and he was scrambling across the lawn and towards the front door.  His dad must have been keeping a lookout, because the front door sprang open before he even got to it and his dad met him halfway through the yard, yanking him into a crushing hug that Stiles did his very best to return.  He knew that he was crying again, clinging to his dad like he had when he was young, right after his mother had died and his separation anxiety had been almost unbearable.

“Oh god, kid,” his dad was saying. “It’s so good to see you.  I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I know, I know!” Stiles said, pressing his wet face into his dad’s shoulder.

“Stiles?” another voice rang out, and that was Scott and it was so good to hear his voice that Stiles just started crying even harder.  He let go of his dad and threw himself at Scott, clinging to him just as hard as he had to his dad.  Scott laughed loudly and squeezed him tightly, and then Melissa was there as well, pulling him close and pressing kisses to his face.

They took a few minutes to cry all over each other and hug and laugh and then cry some more, and then Stiles remembered Derek in the car.  He pulled away from them and wiped his face.

“Guys, I want you to meet Derek,” he said. “He drove me here, and he’s kind of my boyfriend?”

Derek apparently heard him, because he got out of the car, shuffling a little awkwardly in place before Stiles gestured him over.  He approached and shook the Sheriff’s hand.  John looked at him for a long moment, his eyes narrowed, and then he said,

“It’s good to see you, son.”

“You too, sir,” Derek said, sounding subdued and nervous.  Stiles nudged him gently with his elbow, trying to be comforting, but Derek just seemed to shrink in on himself even more.

“Hey, is he Hot-Across-the-Hall-Neighbor?” Scott asked suddenly.

“Oh my god, I hate you so much,” Stiles groaned.

“So he is!” Scott said cheerfully, offering Derek a hand to shake. “He talks about you _all the time_ , man!”

This seemed to snap Derek out of his funk a little bit and he smirked at Stiles as he shook Scott’s hand.

“Whatever,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. “You know you’re hot.”

“We were just getting dinner on the table,” John said, interrupting any comeback Derek might have come up with. “You’re welcome to stay with us, if you’d like, Derek.”

“No thank you, sir,” Derek said quietly. “I’ve got somewhere I have to be.  I just wanted to make sure that Stiles got home okay.”

“All right,” John said. “We’ll just let you two say good bye, then.”

He ushered Scott and Melissa into the house, and Stiles felt his heart clench and his stomach drop as he realized that Derek was _leaving_ and that they’d never see each other again.  But he couldn’t ask Derek to stay and give up his last chance to make things right with his family.  As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t be that selfish.

“So, this is it,” Stiles said, his happy feelings from seeing his family again all but disappearing with the idea of Derek leaving.

“I guess so,” Derek said. “I…”

“I just wanted…”

They both stopped and stared at each other, both waiting for the other to speak first.  After a moment of stand off, Stiles rolled his eyes and threw his arms around Derek and pressing their bodies close together.  Derek let out a shaky breath and wrapped his arms around Stiles just as tightly.

“I love you,” Stiles said quietly into his shoulder, knowing that he would hear.

“I love you, too,” Derek responded.

It was utterly ridiculous.  They’d only known each other for a few days.  They’d had awkward car sex and it was the end of the world and they couldn’t possibly be in love with each other in that short and hectic of a time.  But that feeling curling through Stiles’ gut and up to his chest, making his heart pound and his breath catch in his throat, couldn’t be anything else.

He pulled back just enough so that they could kiss each other, deep, frantic kisses that tasted far too much like a good bye.  He didn’t know how long they stood there in his dad’s front yard, kissing and clinging and saying good bye in every way but out loud, but eventually they pulled away from each other with a kind of finality.

“Good bye,” Stiles said, finally, because he knew he’d regret it if he didn’t.

“Bye,” Derek said, stroking Stiles’ cheek with his hand gently, like one last tiny goodbye, and then he was getting in the car and driving away.  Stiles watched until the Camaro turned a corner and disappeared from view, and then he wiped away his tears and headed inside.

Final Day

Stiles spent his last day on Earth curled up on the couch with his dad, Scott, and Scott’s mom.  They watched the original Star Wars trilogy (“Scott, as your best friend, I refuse to let you die without having seen Star Wars”), ate a bunch of junk food (“I’ve spent the last ten years getting harassed about eating right to avoid a heart attack and now I’m gonna be pulverized by a giant asteroid so shut up and give me those Oreos”), and basically just spent time together.

The power grid finally gave out around four in the afternoon, three hours before the asteroid was supposed to hit.  Matilda was so close that it blocked out the sun, and the whole world was dark and quiet.  The only light sources they had were some flickering candles that used to belong to his mom.  They had been scented at one point, but now they mostly smelled like burning dust.

“Can you believe this is actually happening?” Stiles asked, thunking his head back against the couch, hissing at the pain that radiated through his skull when he managed to hit the wooden fram underneath the lining.

“It still doesn’t seem possible,” Melissa said quietly.

“I keep thinking I’ll wake up and it’ll all be a weird dream,” Scott added. “This sort of stuff isn’t supposed to happen in real life.”

““Like...even after driving across the country I think I was still half convinced that something would stop it.  You know, saving the day in the final hour,” Stiles said, rubbing at his sore head. “I hope Derek found his family okay.”

“What do you mean?” his dad asked, frowning.  He had that look on his face, the one that said Stiles made absolutely no sense and he just wasn’t sure they were speaking the same language.

“He had some huge blow out with them or something ten years ago,” Stiles explained. “He didn’t like to talk about it, but I convinced him that he should go see them and try to make up with them before the end.”

“Wow,” his dad said quietly. “He must really like you.”

“I mean, yeah, I think so,” Stiles said, frowning. “Why do you say it like that?”

“Well, I was surprised to see that he’d come back,” John said, the frown on his face looking exaggerated in the flickering light. “But it makes a little more sense, now.”

“What do you mean, come back?” Stiles demanded. “Have you met him before?”

“Stiles,” his dad said. “You do know that he’s Derek Hale, don’t you?  Of the Beacon Hills Hales.”

Stiles sat up slowly and stared at him, his jaw hanging open slightly.  He only knew of one family of Hales in Beacon Hills, and they’d all died in a fire ten years ago.  It made sense, all of a sudden, the way Derek always spoke of his family in the past tense.  Stiles had thought he just did it because it had been so long since he’d spoken to them, but maybe they really were past tense.  He realized, suddenly, that Derek had never said that his family wouldn’t want to see him.  He’d said that it wouldn’t make a difference if he was with them or not, because they were dead and they wouldn’t know either way.  And the whole time, he’d just been blathering on, making Derek talk about them, telling him that he should be with them at the end of the world.

“Oh my god,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “Oh my god, Dad, he’s out there all alone.  I have to find him.”

“What?” Scott squawked. “Stiles, it’s like two hours until the end of the world and he left last night!  How are you gonna find him?”

“He was going to see his family,” Stiles said. “I think he’ll still be there.  He has nowhere else to go.  Dad, do you happen to know which cemetery the Hales were buried at?”

“I think they were all buried on the property,” John said. “Out in the preserve.  Laura Hale insisted, and I know Derek came back to bury her and his uncle there a few years ago after they died in those mountain lion attacks.  Such a tragedy.”

Stiles, of course, knew exactly where in the preserve his dad was talking about.  Like every other Beacon Hills High student, he’d spent weekends sneaking out to explore the ruins of the old burned out house and drink where he was unlikely to get caught.  He felt sick thinking about it, now.  He’d treated  Derek’s childhood home like a playground, when it reality it was a graveyard.

“I’ll be back,” Stiles promised, looking at each of them in turn. “I’m gonna find Derek and bring him back with me.  We’ll both be here at the end, I promise.”

“Okay,” his dad said, but he still grabbed him up in a tight hug. “We’ll see you then.”

“I love you guys,” Stiles said, just in case.  He had every intention of being back in time, but he just needed to be sure.  There was too much on the line.

They all hugged him again, and then he was rushing out the door to find Roscoe in the garage just where he’d left her.  It took a few tries to get her engine to turn over, but when he finally managed, she roared to life with a vengeance.

The trip out to the preserve seemed to take forever, even though it was really only a twenty minute drive.  He missed the turn off for the old Hale house twice, since the path had become so overgrown with weeds in all the time that no one had been using it.  It was so dark outside in the woods he had to flip on his brights in order to see anything, and he felt more and more like he was going to get lost and die alone in the woods, looking for Derek, away from his father.

Finally, though, the old Hale House came into a view, a huge burnt-out shell standing sentinel in the middle of the trees.  He spilled out of the Jeep and ran towards the house, calling out for Derek the whole way.  He didn’t dare to try and go inside.  The old place had been falling apart and condemned when he was a teenager.  He couldn’t imagine how much it worse it must have gotten while he was in college.

“Derek!” he yelled, circling the property. He saw no signs of life, though, and if Derek heard him he wasn’t acknowledging his calls.  He took another turn around the house, finding nothing but a huge patch of purple flowers by the back door, and a bit further back near the trees, Derek’s Camaro.

He had to be somewhere nearby then, but where?  He looked back at the patch of flowers and then suddenly it came to him out of nowhere.  Derek’s fort, the one he had ditched Nora in the woods for.  If there was anywhere around this ruined destroyed house he would find comfort in, it would be that fort.

He ducked into the trees near where  Derek had parked his car and started walking straight.  It was the only hunch he had for whatever direction Derek was in, and maybe if he just kept yelling, Derek would come find _him_ instead.

He was a few hundred yards into the trees when he heard the sounds of something moving through the underbrush, and he peered around in the darkness, hoping that whatever it was wasn’t coming to eat him.

“Derek?” he called hopefully. The noises came to a stop for a moment and Stiles’ heart thudded painfully in his chest, and then finally he heard,

“Stiles?”

“Oh my god, Derek,” Stiles gasped, fumbling blindly towards the direction of Derek’s voice. “I’ve been looking for you!  Why didn’t you just tell me you were a Hale, you asshole?”

“Hey, be careful, you’re about to walk into a tree,” Derek said, and suddenly Stiles could see his eyes glowing red in the darkness.  It created an eerie picture, but he still felt relieved as they got closer to him.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Stiles huffed, grabbing Derek up in a hug as soon as he was close enough, even though he still couldn’t really see anything.  Derek made a sort of ‘oof’ noise that indicated Stiles had hit him in a delicate spot, but he didn’t even feel bad about it.

“I...didn’t want to admit it,” Derek said quietly. “What I did to them.  It was nice to have someone who didn’t know tell me that they’d forgive me.”

“Derek!”  Stiles said, stumbling along as Derek led him through the woods.  At that point he was so turned around he had no idea which way there were going, but he trusted Derek not to lead him astray. “What are you even talking about? The fire was an electrical wiring accident, that’s not your fault.  Have you been living with this misplaced guilt this whole time?”

“It wasn’t an electrical fire,” Derek said, his voice quiet. “It was set on purpose.”

“What?” Stiles asked, feeling numb. “What do you mean?  My dad always said…”

“The report was wrong,” Derek said. “I know what happened because it was _my fault_ , Stiles.  They all died, my parents, Nora...”

They broke the tree line and stepped out into the clearing behind the house, into the tall grass that hadn’t been attended to in years.

“Derek,” Stiles said slowly. “I know you must have survivor’s guilt,” he said. “How could you not, losing your entire family twice?”

“Laura and Peter were my fault too,” Derek said. “Peter killed Laura so I killed Peter.  They’re all buried there.”

He nodded towards the massive patch of purple flowers.   Stiles had thought, maybe, that they might have once been a garden that had gotten out of control without someone to tend to it.  He hadn’t realized they were gravemarkers.

“Derek,” he said. “I don’t know what happened with Laura and your uncle,” he said. “It sounds like you were only doing what you had to.  But the fire...that wasn’t your fault, okay?”

“Remember how I told you about my second girlfriend, the one I moved to New York to get away from?” Derek asked hollowly.  He let Stiles go and moved over to the patch of flowers.  He sank down onto the grass, right next to it but carefully not touching, and looked down at his lap.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, feeling sick at the tone of Derek’s voice.  He knew he wasn’t going to like what he was going to hear.

“Her name was Kate. She was a hunter,” Derek said. “A member of a very famous clan of werewolf hunters, in fact. I was sixteen and stupid and she was twenty-three and beautiful and I thought she loved me.  She got close to me, slept with me, made me fall in love with her, and then she trapped my whole family inside our house and burned it to the ground.”

“Holy shit, Derek,” Stiles breathed.  He sank down into the grass next to Derek and wrapped his arms around him.  Derek was stiff in his arms, like he didn’t think he deserved the comfort. “That’s not your fault.  She was a psychopathic murderer and you were a child.  That’s not your fault.”

“I told her how to get in,” Derek said quietly. “I told her about the underground escape tunnels.  She murdered them all, and she left me alive because she thought it was more fun to make me live with what I’d done to them.”

“Derek, you didn’t…”

“There were so many times,” Derek interrupted. “ _So many times_ I wanted to die.  But Laura needed me, and after she was gone, it seemed disrespectful to just give up my life when theirs had been taken from them.  Ever since I found out about the asteroid, I’ve been kind of glad.  Because it means I don’t have to make the choice.”

“God, Derek,” Stiles murmured, feeling cold all over.  He couldn’t imagine what it was like to live with that kind of guilt and depression hanging over him every day for ten years.  “Derek none of it was your fault.  I know you don’t believe me, but I want you to know, okay?  It wasn’t your fault.  You were a victim and I’m so sorry you’ve had to live all alone with this for so long.”

“I deserved it,” Derek said quietly.

“You didn’t deserve it,” Stiles responded fiercely. “You didn’t, and you’re so strong for getting through it anyway.  Your family doesn’t have to forgive you because there’s nothing to forgive, okay?  But if you need it, I forgive you.  Okay?  I forgive you.  You were tricked and abused and it wasn’t your fault, but I forgive you and absolve you of everything, okay?”

Derek didn’t say anything, but he finally turned into Stiles embrace and clutched him tightly.  Stiles could feel his hot tears soaking through the material of his shirt, and he stroked his hands up and down Derek’s back as soothingly as he could.  It took nearly ten minutes for Derek to calm down enough to stop crying, and Stiles clumsily tried to wipe his tears away in the dark, making Derek laugh weakly when he accidentally poked him in the eye.

“Come back with me,” he said quietly. “Back to the house.  My dad and Scott and Melissa are waiting for us.”

“I don’t know,” Derek said quietly. “Maybe I should just stay…”

“Listen to me,” Stiles said stubbornly, grabbing Derek’s face and forcing him to look into his eyes. “I’m not leaving you alone to die out here, okay?  So either you come with me or I’m not leaving.”

Derek still hesitated for a long moment, so Stiles added, “I promised my dad I’d be back.”

“Okay,” Derek said, finally. “Let’s go back.”

* * *

In the end, they were all huddled together in the living room.  Scott and Melissa were pressed together on the loveseat, Scott with his head on his mom’s shoulder as she stroked his hair gently.  John was sat in Stiles’ mom’s favorite chair, the one by the window that looked out onto the street.  It was close enough that he could reach out to the couch where Stiles sat, practically in Derek’s lap, and hold his hand.

They were all very aware of the minutes ticking away, but they still tried to keep up small chatter to keep from spending the last moments in utter silence.  Stiles reminded them of some of his and Scott’s better hi-jinks.  John and Melissa shared memories of Stiles’ mother.  Derek told them, awkward and quiet, about the way his parents used to throw impromptu dance parties in their living room.

Stiles and Derek were in the middle of telling them about their trip, minus the incident in Chicago and the werewolf bits, when the first explosion sounded, signaling impact. Stiles jumped in his seat and started to shake.

“I’m scared,” he admitted quietly enough that only Derek could hear him.

“It’s okay,” Derek said, pressing their foreheads together gently.  They both kept their eyes open, studying each other’s faces, not wanting to miss a single moment.

“I wish I had met you sooner,” Stiles said, his eyes tearing up. “When we were kids.  I wish I’d known you my whole life.”

“No,” Derek said quietly, kissing away his tears gently. “It had to happen like this.  It had to be now.”

“We didn’t have enough time,” Stiles said desperately.  

“A thousand years wouldn’t have been enough time with you,” Derek told him gently.

He was a crying wreck and Derek was so strong calm and quiet.  It seemed almost unfair, but he could hear Scott and Melissa whispering to each other and his dad mumbling something that sounded like a soft prayer to his mother, so maybe it was Derek that was having the unfair moment, being unable or unwilling to cry.  Or maybe he’d already shed his tears, out in the woods in the shadow of the ruins of his family home.

There were several consecutive explosion noises, each louder and closer than the next.  Stiles jumped and clutched his dad’s hand harder, but Derek just kept gazing at him like he was the most incredible thing in the universe.

“Knowing you is the best thing I’ve ever done,” Derek told him quietly. “And I’m so glad I got the chance to be with you.”

Stiles kissed him then, desperate and scared and so very in love.  They pulled away from each other slowly and shared one final, searching look.  

He finally, blissfully, let his eyes slip closed, and the last thing he saw before a bright, burning light enveloped the world was Derek’s gorgeous smile.


End file.
